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THE SOLACE OF A SOLITAIRE. 



THE 



SOLACE OF A SOLITAIRE 



& l&ecorti of factg ariti jftelmg#< 



MARY ANN'KELTY, 

AUTHOR OF "VISITING MV RELATIONS," ETC. 



" What is man, and whereto serveth he? What is his good, and what is his 
evil ? " — Ecclesiasticus (Apocrypha) xviii. 8. 



LONDON: 
TRUBNER & CO., 60 PATERNOSTER ROW. 

1869. 



THE 

SOLACE OF A SOLITAIRE 



CHAPTER I. 

T THINK it is Voltaire, who, in his epigrammatic 
way, observes, that " solitude is delightful ; 
but it is desirable to have some one at hand to 
sympathise in the pleasure it affords you." 

It is a great and stubborn fact that " it is not 
good for man to be alone." Still less is it good 
for woman, inasmuch as in her temperament, 
feeling and imagination are far more predominant 
than in his ; and, from the usual tenor of her 
education, she has not the means of keeping 
these impulses in abeyance, by directing her 
mind to the calming influence of scientific pur- 
suits. Neither by her appointed and proper 

A 



2 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

place in human affairs has she the resources which 
open a way of escape from morbid emotions that 
man has, in those stern duties of wrestling with 
circumstances, and fighting his way to position 
and pecuniary comfort, which every day, and 
sometimes all the day long, engage his time and 
thoughts. Of course, I am speaking of woman, 
as consigned by the condition of loneliness, to 
make out her happiness as best she may. When 
her lot is the natural and usual one of a wife 
and mother, she has (or ought to have) occupa- 
tions and duties enough to engage far too much 
of her attention to leave her any leisure for the 
rovings and romance of the imagination. And 
when this is not the case, and her destiny is that 
which in courtesy is termed (< single blessedness," 
she has usually, in surrounding relatives, many 
claimants upon her kind offices, which, when faith- 
fully and affectionately responded to, often grant, 
in the sweet consciousness of being useful, and 
the inward testimony of conscience to the fulfil- 
ment of duty, — to the good maiden aunt or cousin 
of the family, a happier lot than to the wife and 
mother. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 3 

These are women whose course amidst the. soft 
charities of life seems to be over a prairie sown 
with flowers. But there are some of the sex to 
whom such resources are denied, and whose jour- 
ney has to be taken in absolute loneliness, and not 
through verdant and flowery prairies, but through 
a sandy desert, and a " waste howling wilderness." 

Amongst these travellers, it has been ordained 
that I should take my place. Of the circumstances 
which led to such a dispensation I could say 
enough to fill a volume ; but it would be only to 
strengthen the egotism which is already in me, 
as in all solitary persons, too prominent a trait. 

The bewitching charm of talking about one's self 
is of the most dangerous and deluding character. 
It seems to me much like spreading out faults and 
follies, as a draper spreads his goods upon a 
counter, for the public to take their choice of 
which is the best ; and probably to go away with 
the remark that there is nothing worth having in 
the whole lot. 

Still, I must do something ; and to have an 
occupation for my pen having been my habit for 
a much longer period than fifty years, it appears 



4 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

to be the employment best fitted for me to engage 
in. So to that I turn. But in what way am I 
to use this restless pen ? I cannot go into auto- 
biography, for, how can I come before the public 
with revelations respecting my personal history 
whilst I am still living ? Such a proceeding 
would be about as derogatory to self-respect 
as if I were to beat a drum and gather a crowd 
to see me walk about the streets on stilts. No ; 
I won't sit down and tell my own story, — that 's 
clear. " But you can tell a part of it, — you can 
bring out bits here and there," said self-love, 
clinching the argument by reminding me that it 
was by the relation of personal experience alone 
that striking passages in the life of any individual 
could be made of use in instructing others. I was 
told also to remember, how Madame de Stael 
(at least according to her relative and biographer, 
Madame Neckar de Saussure,) had intended to 
write a work on " The Education of the Heart 
from the Circumstances of Life;" and how could 
she have done this, except by revealing the history 
of her own heart, since that was the only one with 
whose education she could have had any expe- 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 5 

Hence ? All this is very true, I replied, for the 
exhibitions of self-consciousness are, undoubtedly, 
those which concern us individually, much more 
than statements which guardedly and designedly 
stand aloof from all personal reference. 

" All that great world," says M. de Montalem- 
bert, " which palpitates within the narrow limits of 
a man's life, of a heart which loves, — ah, this is the 
most beautiful and absorbing of histories. This is 
the tale which endures, and moves us all to the 
depths." 

But what says that philosopher and acute critic, 
Mr Emerson, on the subject of egotism? — and auto- 
biography, we must remember, is only another 
word for egotism — that miserable propensity which 
he describes as " the scourge of talent, — of artists, 
inventors, and philosophers. Eminent spiritualists 
shall have an incapacity of putting their act or 
word aloof from them, and seeing it bravely, for 
the nothing which it is." * 

No ; I will not of set purpose go into auto- 
biographical details. I will let my pen take its 
course ; and seeing that it is as the Solace of a 

* Conduct of Life, p. 82. 



6 Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 

Solitaire I give it any exercise, I will get out of it 
what mental refreshment I can for myself, and 
endeavour to make it, as far as I can, diffusive of 
good to others. 



CHAPTER II. 

T N accordance with the purpose with which I 
concluded the last chapter, I do not think I 
can better begin this than by transcribing a short 
sentence which, on my first waking this morning, 
presented itself to my notice. 

" Do you sleep, then, with a book under your 
pillow ? " you ask. 

" No ; but always with one by my bed-side ; 
first, because I wake very early ; and next, because 
after sleep, and in the serene stillness of the morn- 
ing hour, the mind is peculiarly open to impres- 
sions of an instructive kind. The sentence which 
came to me to-day as a morsel of spiritual good, 
was this remark of Lacordaire, the celebrated 
French priest : ' To betake one's self to one's own 
interior and to God, gives the greatest strength in 
the world.' " 



8 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

" Do you know anything about that ? " quoth I 
to myself. 

And here, to make myself intelligible, I may 
remark that, from living so long and so continu- 
ously in solitude, I have acquired a habit of hold- 
ing dialogues with myself, or rather, with something 
better than myself, which often sets me right when 
I am about to diverge into error ; and is of great 
use in enabling me to understand what I am about, 
and where I am going. And when I say this. I 
beg to be understood, as by no means presuming 
to arrogate to myself anything peculiar to my own 
individuality in the possession of this bosom friend ; 
for it is near to every one of us, and only waits at 
the door of our conscience to obtain and respond 
to our notice. 

When, therefore, my invisible but constant com- 
panion put the question whether I knew anything 
of the process of which Lacordaire made mention, 
and of the strength which he stated it to impart, 
I could, and did, promptly reply that I knew it 
well ; and could set my seal to it as a certain 
truth, known to me as such, upon the testimony of 
experience ; since, having for the last seven and 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 9 

thirty years been driven, by the force of circum- 
stances, to live chiefly in my own interior, I have 
there found strength (at least when I have earnestly 
sought it) which I never could find elsewhere. 

Now, I feel persuaded that, on reading this 
statement of mine, which I make under the con- 
sciousness that it is witnessed by the Searcher 
of hearts, amongst those into whose hands it 
may fall, if they be earnest and sincere thinkers, 
they will wish for some more specific notice on my 
part, respecting a matter so little understood, but 
so often felt to be wanted by them. 

This may be thought a bold assertion ; but, 
believe me, you must be bold when you feel that 
you know what you are talking about. What 
confidence should you have in that doctor, who, 
when you were consulting him about your health, 
and were waiting for the prescription you expected 
him to write, — were to talk about considering your 
case, — looking for it in his books ; and, in fact, all 
but saying that he did not understand it, and you 
had better come again in two or three days, when 
he had thought it over ? 

Now the person, be it man or woman, who, upon 



io The Solace of a Solitaire : 

the borders of fourscore, writes or talks about 
human happiness or misery, which is just the 
healthy or unhealthy state of the soul, puts himself 
or herself in the place of the soul's physician ; and 
mustn't hum and ha, and think, and suppose, 
that this and the other method of managing your- 
self may be advisable ; but they must speak out 
affirmatively and say to you, "do so and so, — do 
it ; and then you will know the power that is in 
it to give you the strength you want, but have 
not." 

But what right have you to assume to yourself 
the character of the soul's physician ? it will be 
said. 

"No right," I reply, — and I don't assume it. It 
comes to me in the course of circumstances, as I 
have just told you, to have to seek in writing an 
occupation, and the solace for the burden of weari- 
ness which belongs to old age. The only question 
then is, What shall I write ? It is not to be 
autobiography. It cannot be romances and novels ; 
and God forbid it should be, even if I had the 
power ; since for an old man or woman to em- 
ploy their time in portraying the vagaries of the 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 1 

imagination, seems to me worse than doing 
nothing. And I do not say this because I have 
never tried the benefit that may, even as a mere 
mental resource, be found in writing a novel ; for, 
when I began my literary career, nearly fifty years 
ago, it was by writing one called " The Favourite 
of Nature." It was highly successful ; — reached a 
fourth edition, and brought me the sum of two 
hundred and fifty pounds ; which, though pleasant 
enough to receive as one of its results, was of 
small value in comparison with the mental resource 
it afforded me under domestic circumstances of a 
somewhat trying character. I have nothing, there- 
fore, personally to say against novel writing under 
proper conditions ; — which old age is not to be 
considered ; so, there is an end of my writing any- 
thing in the shape of a story. 

Without, therefore, assuming to myself the 
character of teacher or preacher, it seems, that as 
I must write, the becoming position I have to take 
as a writer is that of using the opportunity it 
affords of leaving upon record, for the good of any 
who may care to benefit by it, such of my experi- 
ence as I have found profitable to myself. To 



1 2 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

return therefore to the remark of Lacordaire, 
touching the strength that is to be found in re- 
treating to God, and to one's own interior. 

I do not hesitate to affirm that I know this to 
be a certain truth. It is a matter of experience 
with me. But how to persuade people to try and 
make it matter of experience to themselves is a 
difficult, not to say an impossible, thing to accom- 
plish. Not, observe, because they do not feel the 
want of internal strength, — using the term as sig- 
nificant of a condition of inward repose and peace. 
I fully believe that there never was a time in which 
the inner world, or, in more simple parlance, the 
minds of human beings, presented a condition of 
greater tumult and consequent disquiet, than at 
the present day. The driving forces of ambition, 
of covetousness, of the love of pleasure, of every 
passion, in short, which the possession of money 
can help to gratify, seem to be at the back of 
almost everybody, — sending them on and on 
they don't know where, — to do they don't know 
what, — except that it is something to gratify the 
inordinate appetite of self-love, and self-will. No 
purpose, — no pursuit can be carried on with the 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 3 

moderation which is essential to peace of mind. 
Peace of mind indeed ! The word of the prophet 
to Jezabel may be addressed now-a-days to every 
nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand, 
" What hast thou to do with peace ? " Especially 
is this want of spiritual rest experienced by those 
who are engaged in a commercial career. It was 
but yesterday evening that I was talking on this 
point with a family man of middle age, with 
whom, through his marriage with a near and dear 
connexion of mine, I am in habits of confidential 
intercourse. He is engaged in business, and I 
believe conducts it with due prudence and regard 
to the interests of those who are dependent upon 
him. Yet he acknowledged that in the present 
state of the commercial world, he believed it to be 
impossible for any one who was actively engaged 
in it, to know the meaning of such a feeling as 
peace of mind. 

" I throw myself on the sofa," said he, " in the 
evening, and take up the newspaper, intending to 
have an hour's quiet recreation in reading it. But 
presently some engrossing thought of a business 
kind presents itself, and the paper drops on the 



14 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

floor, whilst I follow out the suggestions of my 
mind." 

I expressed, as I felt, a strong conviction that 
this thraldom of the mind to the things of this 
world, was nothing less than closing up every 
avenue to happiness. 

u He could say nothing about that ; all he could 
say was, that he felt persuaded he was not sin- 
gular in the state of mind of which he had spoken ; 
for that, he had no doubt, almost every man who 
was engaged in a large way of business, if he 
spoke the truth, would say as he did, that he 
could apply his mind to nothing else." 

" To nothing else," said I, " but the way to get 
money?" 

" Well, we must get money as a means of 
getting on." 

" What is money without peace of mind ? " 
quoth I. 

" They are not thinking about peace of mind," 
he said ; " their business lies elsewhere." 

I mused for some time after I laid my head 
upon my pillow on what had passed, and Mrs 
Quickly's comments on the death of Fals'tafT came 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 5 

to my remembrance. " A' made a finer end, and 
went away an it had been any christom child. 
1 How now, Sir John !' quoth I ; ' what, man, be o' 
good cheer! So a' cried out God! three or four 
times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a' should 
not think of God ; I hoped there was no need to 
trouble himself with any such thoughts yet." — 
King Henry V. 

Methinks it is the characteristic of the present 
age to be pretty much of Mrs Quickly 's mind. 
It was the sign of a worldly man in the Psalmist's 
time, that " God was not in all his thoughts ; " but 
the query now seems to be whether he is in any 
of them ? Yet people have to suffer and die now, 
as has been their lot since the world began. 

No doubt ; but they have a different way of 
encountering suffering and death than they had 
formerly. We have changed that, with every- 
thing else that is slow and roccoco. With the 
heaps upon heaps of novels, and serial tales, 
coming in such shoals, that the wonder is how 
the printing presses are not worn out in producing 
them ; with these " appliances and means to boot" 
for vanquishing affliction, who need to be un- 



1 6 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

happy ? One of the readiest ways of cheating 
reflection — (besides the old remedy of singing 
" Begone, dull care,") — especially the reflection 
which is apt to hover over the minds of sick 
people, would seem to be the reading of a serial 
tale in one of the periodicals. I gather this from 
reading in one of these multitudinous publications 
not long since, of an invalid lady whose most 
uneasy feeling, under her trying circumstances, 
was a fear that she should die before the story 
which she was engaged in reading in a certain 
magazine was finished ; and thus she would have 
to go out of the world without knowing the fate 
of the heroine ! In this state of the public mind, 
it is but to a very limited circle I can look for 
any sympathy in the refreshment I felt this 
morning in the remark of Lacordaire. I shall 
nevertheless leave it to take its chance of notice 
and acceptance with the few who may possibly 
be disposed to receive and profit by it. 

There is always a remote, if not a present 
hope in recording on paper a useful thought. Mr 
Roscoe (I think it was) concluded some lines he 
had been requested to write in an album with a 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 7 

couplet as full of suggestive wisdom as it is of 
poetical beauty. 

Having spoken with humility of the frailty of 
his tribute, and of the page on which he inscribed 
it, he adds,— 

' ' Yet shall they both preserve their worthless trust, 
When this still frailer hand is turned to dust.'' 

Even so— " Cast thy bread upon the waters : for 
thou shalt find it after many days." * 

* Ecclesiastes xi. I. 



CHAPTER III. 

T SAID in the outset of my engagement of 
writing this record, that I should let my 
pen take its own course ; and as that seems to 
prompt me to speak of what interests me in my 
morning meditations, as suggested by the books 
I open, (for it is little more than opening them 
that occurs — it having long been my habit to read 
very little at a time of a thoughtful book) — I will 
give you a sentence which to-day struck me as 
imparting counsel as sweet as it was instructive. 
I find it in the "Life and Letters of Gerhard 
Tersteegen," a German writer of the mystical 
school ; and it occurs in a letter containing some 
directions he is giving to a correspondent respect- 
ing communion with God : — " Let it seem to 
thee," he says, " as if thou wert in the company, 
secretly, of a kind and beloved friend, through a 
foreign land and a desert wilderness." 



The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 19 

It is often a pleasant, and, in some measure, a 
strengthening idea which I have of being attended 
by a guardian spirit, which, like that of Socrates, 
(that he calls his demon,) directs, reproves, restrains, 
and in times of trouble, comforts me. As Socrates 
observed of his invisible companion, my interior 
friend more often checks and calls me away from 
action, than he prompts me to engage in it. He 
seems to stand almost in perpetual antagonism to 
the impulses of my will, even in what may seem 
trivial things. I can recall instances in my expe- 
rience, which occurred years before my mind came 
under the influence of religion as an abiding and 
practical principle, in which I was sensible of the 
presence and counsel of this invisible teacher ; and 
also that its action was most forcible when most 
needed. On one occasion in particular its re- 
straining power was so vivid that I could have 
believed that with my bodily ear I heard a voice 
commanding me to " be still" The case was this : 
On the preceding day a domestic circumstance 
had occurred which was of a kind to occasion me 
extreme distress, and which caused me to retire 
to my bed extremely unhappy. On waking, my 



20 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

burden of misery, as always, I believe, happens 
after sleep, especially with persons of acute feel- 
ing, started up like a spectre, and I was beginning 
to sigh and weep, when the words seemed to go 
through me, " Hush — hush! be still /" 

For a few moments I was really awed into 
silence ; but I was at that time too destitute of 
acquaintance with spiritual truth, and conse- 
quently of faith in its power, to follow in the 
path of obedience thus opened up to me. 

I could multiply such instances of the timely 
and wise restraint of which I have been sensible in 
the silent world within my soul ; and very precious 
it is to me to believe that it originated in a far 
higher source than fancy. I got much to confirm 
and strengthen my faith in this inward Restrainer 
as nothing less than divine, by reading in Mr 
Emerson's " Representative Men," that " the Hin- 
doos have denominated the Supreme Being the 
Internal Check?* 

But whilst I am making religion so prominent 
a theme, I am aware that I thereby endanger my 
own acceptance with a reader. 

* Article on Swedenborg, p. 104. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 2 1 

Distasteful, however, as the subject may be, it 
is a remarkable thing that we can never talk long 
and earnestly upon any matter that deeply inter- 
ests our feelings, without, in some way or another, 
alluding to it. We may not mean to do so, nor 
even be aware that we are doing it, but the solem- 
nising tenderness of everything that appeals to the 
heart, compels us, it may be but slightly as to 
words, but surely as to feeling, to have a sense 
upon our spirits that we are dealing with Him 
who holds our destiny in His hands, whenever we 
get to talking about what concerns our happiness 
or misery. We are, in short, for the time, under 
the influence of religion. For what is religion, I 
should like to know, in the proper meaning of the 
word, but TRUTH ? That matter which usually 
goes by the name of religion, and which consists 
in the outward badge by which persons distinguish 
themselves as belonging to a particular class of 
professing hearers, is a long way from possess- 
ing the nature of that of which I desire and mean 
to speak in alluding to religion. 

All thoughtful persons must be conscious of 
possessing certain instincts of a holy and very 



22 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

precious kind, which, on all subjects that deeply 
affect their hearts, spontaneously mount upward 
(so to speak) to their heavenly source. 

I had a charming illustration of this blessed 
yearning of the soul for divine communion with 
its Maker, this very day, in observing the singing 
of a lark as it sped on its way to the sky. Forth 
from the ground the joyous creature went, " sing- 
ing and making melody in its heart," as if, in the 
exuberance of existence, it luxuriated in happi- 
ness. Presently, it sunk down to earth — con- 
tented to be there, and to be still — just as if its 
little humble offering of joyful gratitude being 
paid, its present work was done, and it was to 
wait quietly till the next impulse to mount and 
sing and rejoice was felt. It gave me a charming 
symbol of the soul in its aspirations of love and 
praise, now rising to the presence of its Creator 
with a song, and then, the divine afflatus with- 
drawn, sinking humbly down to its rest in peaceful 
silence. Ah, these brief but beautiful outcomes 
of devotional feeling, how exquisite is their influ- 
ence ! It must have been of these touches of com- 
munion with the Fountain of life and everlasting 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 23 

joy, that the Psalmist spake when he said, " How- 
precious are Thy thoughts unto me, O God ; how 
great is the sum of them ! " 

It is painful to think how little of this living 
and lovely worship is practised, and how, instead 
of it, the service of God is commonly performed 
with the dry, dead bones of empty forms, and life- 
less words. Still, I am disposed to believe, that, 
in tender and feeling hearts, there is much more of 
affectionate yearning after communion with God, 
than people in general are aware of. There is an 
illustration of this as a fact, in the following pas- 
sage which I extract from the "Table Talk "* of 
Mr Rogers : — 

"Do you ever say your prayers V* asked Plunk- 
ett of Grattan. 

" No, never." 

" What, never! — neither night nor morning ?" 

" Never ; but I have aspirations all day and all 
night long."— (Page 173.) 

We find this inward and spiritual view of reli- 
gion chiefly in the works of the mystics ; the only 
religionists whose writings are of any use to me, 

* Published by Moxon, 1856. 



24 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

because they are the only people who recognise 
the Divine Being as ever present and ever acting 
in their own souls. This is just the place where 
He is wanted, and where His agency must be felt 
to render it operative for the individual's comfort 
and instruction. I am often struck with the utter 
uselessness of their religious views to the greater 
part of people, as it respects the state of their 
mind and feelings ; and should be at a loss to un- 
derstand it, if I did not remember how it was with 
myself for many years of my life, and how it is, I 
believe, with everybody, till, by some severe stroke 
of affliction, they are drawn or driven to turn their 
attention inward, and seek their devotion in the 
secret of their own hearts. I daresay that most 
persons who pretend to any observance at all of 
religion, would say that it is in their own hearts 
they do look for its aid, but the fact is quite other- 
wise.. The plain truth of the matter is, that people 
in general do not know, and cannot even conceive, 
what the act of seeking the presence and agency 
of the Spirit of God in their own souls means. In 
point of fact, they do not know what the idea of 
God means. How should they, when the instruc- 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 25 

tion they have received on that great subject leads 
only to their forming a set of notions that God is 
a Being whom they ought to acknowledge as the 
maker of heaven and earth, and worship after the 
mode of worshipping which is practised at the 
church or chapel they attend ; and that, besides 
this public act of devotion, they should read the 
Bible, and say their prayers night and morning, 
and observe the Sabbath by doing no work, and 
reading no novels or newspapers on that day. All 
this put past ; there 's an end on 't, and very glad 
they are that it is ended. I was, at least when 
such was the fashion of the religion I followed, 
which was the religion in which I was educated, 
and in which I lived till I was five and thirty. 
Undoubtedly, there is much more spiritual in- 
struction imparted at places of worship, and in 
religious teaching by books, than was the case in 
my youthful days. Sixty years ago, when I was 
eighteen, there was only Mr Simeon who bore the 
character of an evangelical preacher at Cambridge, 
my native and then dwelling-place ; and Mr Simeon 
and his followers, (who were recognised as "Trinity 
Church folks,") were regarded by me, and all my 



26 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

associates, as people quite removed from the pur- 
suits, the sympathies, and one would almost say, 
the common nature of the parishioners of every 
other church in the town. Why this happened, I 
neither knew nor cared ; nor did anybody else, I 
believe, of my acquaintance. It was enough for 
us that this was the case, and that we had nothing 
to do with Trinity Church, nor Mr Simeon. The 
Sunday works put over, we started fresh the next 
day, with renewed eagerness, on the real point 
and purpose of our hearts, which was to have as 
much enjoyment of the world as we could. Here 
was our heart, and here our faith ; for here were 
the things that we saw and felt, and imagined we 
could put trust in. Happily for me, they soon 
gave way, and the mercy of God having granted 
me a belief in, and love of, the real in the things I 
had to deal with, I very early in my day turned to 
religion. In my first steps into this path, it so hap- 
pened that this very Mr Simeon, whom I had held 
so cheap, was made of great service to me, as I 
have stated at some length in a work published by 
me some years since.* I do not now view the 

* Reminiscences of Thought and Feeling. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 27 

ministry by which I was then greatly helped, as 
of the kind to build up and establish the mind, 
after the manner in which that of the mystics is so 
strengthening. But, in its time and place, I found 
it of great value, and remember it with respect 
and gratitude. 



CHAPTER IV. 

T SOMETIMES feel oppressed and dissatisfied 
with the exceeding loneliness of my lot ; but 
only at intervals, and but for a short time. A few 
minutes of inward stillness suffice to let the cloud 
pass over, and then the blessed light in which I 
am able to see things in their true nature, shows 
me that this isolation is the highest favour, and a 
token of the Divine Wisdom of the Providence 
that has appointed it. Unable as I am, from want 
of early and proper training in habits of self- 
government, to keep the tight rein which is need- 
ful over a nature so restless, so eager, so hungry 
for excitement as mine is, — with the means, too, in 
my power of indulging it, — where and what should 
I have been but a spendthrift of all the best facul- 
ties with which the goodness of God had gifted 
me, if I had had any companion at hand to second 



The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 29 

and assist my propensity to run out after every 
enticing object that caught my fancy ? " Oh, but 
you might have set bounds to the gratification of 
your fancy," some people will say. " You need 
not have gone beyond reasonable limits in your 
pleasures." True enough, I need not. Neither 
need any rational beings transgress the law of 
reason in the gratification they give to their own 
will. But, unhappily, the fact is, that reason is 
found, for the most part, an insufficient protector 
in defending us from ourselves, for, as is only too 
truly said by Pope respecting this faculty — 

' ' Ah, if she lend not arms as well as rules, 
What can she more than tell us we are fools ; 
Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend, 
A sharp accuser, — but a helpless friend." 

I am disposed to think, that it is with many 
minds, as it is with many bodies amongst human 
beings ; and, that just as some of them are, by 
their physical nature, so liable to inflammatory 
disorders, that the least excess in diet throws them 
into a fever, or exposure to the weather into a 
hazard of catching cold ; so,in some minds, there is 
such a tendency to inflammatory action on the emo- 
tional side of their being, that they are only safe, as 



30 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

the physically feeble people are only safe, by guard- 
ing themselves on every side against such things 
as disturb the low, simple, and uniform method 
by which they are obliged to manage themselves, 
in order to maintain their bodily or spiritual health. 
As a vast and blessed help towards keeping myself 
on the best possible regimen for securing interior 
repose and mental equilibrium, (and where is there 
a possibility of happiness without these tokens of 
spiritual health ?) I find my condition of solitude 
priceless in value. Temptations to be restless, 
and to go here, or go there, usually for no object 
but to get or to do something which, not being 
wanted, or not needful to do, — perhaps, better un- 
done, — is almost sure to be regretted — these are 
snares which lose much of their power (with me, 
at least, they do) when no one is near, to whom 
the incipient wish to be in action can be imparted. 
For how sure, how very sure, would the utterance 
of the words, " I have half a mind to go to town 
to-day," especially if addressed to a complaisant 
associate, and no other sort of associate would 
have been at my side, how certainly would it have 
elicited the reply of, " It would do you good ; you 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 3 1 

want a little change," &c. That this restlessness 
is peculiar to humanity, we may safely infer from 
observing how it operates upon children. From 
the time of its beginning (as the nursery phrase 
goes) "to take notice," the waking hours of a 
healthy child are little less than a perpetual tor- 
ment to itself and those who have the charge of it, 
except as its craving for amusement is fed by the 
toys that are given it. And these are usually but 
a momentary solace, being thrown down as soon 
as the excitement of the first glance, or grasp at 
them is over. 

" Oh, but this is only because it is a child/' 
people say. " By and by, it will know better." 

It will know better how to conceal its childish 
will and wishes, I grant. The discipline of educa- 
tion will have enforced some self-restraint, and the 
force of circumstances, when education is ended, 
will, most likely, be its protector from becoming 
the victim of self-will ; happily for the larger part 
of the human family, this force of circumstances 
pursuing them like their shadow, and perpetually 
intervening to hinder their doing as they like. But 
let this check be removed, and the means of self- 



32 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

gratification put in their power, and the child 
playing with a knife, is not in a more hazardous 
position than they are. Now, it is not so with the 
animal creation. The young amongst them are 
quite sufficient for their own amusement. A kitten 
will play with a cork by the hour together, and be 
a thing of joy to itself, and a source of innocent 
mirth to everybody about it, without pining for 
toys, and plaguing a poor nurse-maid, till she 
exclaims in her misery, " What do you want, you 
tiresome child ? " Ay, nurse, that 's just the 
problem hard to solve, " What Do you want I " — a 
problem which you yourself would find it difficult 
to work out, when you feel dissatisfied with your 
condition of servitude, and are longing and looking 
to get out of it. No doubt, you believe that if 
this were the case, you would be quiet and con- 
tented. Yes, just as much, and just as long, as 
baby is contented with the toy you give him. 

It is not till experience, and something better 
than that, — even a measure of divine light and 
truth has sanctified our experience, that we get to 
discover, that this appetite of the mind is a part 
of its nature ; and one which can only be prevented 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 33 

from becoming a source of torment, as it is sup- 
plied with its proper provender, which is " the 
bread of truth." " But, do you expect that the 
nurse, whom you apostrophise, is likely to find and 
feed upon this provender ? " No, indeed ; I have 
no such expectation. Mrs Nurse, and everybody 
else must be content to endure as best they may, 
and satisfy as best they can, the conditions of their 
nature, which, sooner or later, in some way or 
another, I feel well persuaded, that the mercy of 
God will ameliorate, and bring to ultimate purifica- 
tion and peace. 



CHAPTER V. 

AS I was passing this morning by the Asylum 
for the Insane, an immense establishment 
very near my house, a carriage was driving in, 
and the large entrance doors, which are usually 
kept closed, being set wide open for its admission, 
I had an opportunity for seeing the pretty garden 
profusely filled with flowers, the handsome front 
and mansion-like look of the building, and of 
gathering materials for going on my usual walk 
in the Lyndhurst Road, with my head full of 
reflections. Here were all " appliances and means 
to boot," I thought, for the amelioration of the 
heaviest calamity with which human nature can 
be afflicted. But wherefore and whence can such 
an affliction come ? I can understand the misery 
that people bring upon themselves by violating 
their reason ; but to be divested of reason itself, 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 35 

and that from no fault, no cause attributable to 
the unhappy sufferer, is not that strange — and 
sad as strange — and totally bewildering to think 
of ? After a short interval of inward silence, there 
came before the view of my mind, a sight and 
sense of the nature of things in this world by no 
means new to me, for it is of long acquaintance ; 
but I think it presented itself to-day with unusual 
vividness to my thoughts, that this world is the 
property, — the absolute property, and lawful in- 
heritance of an evil spirit. That we have the 
authority of Scripture for believing this, I need 
but name the texts which speak of " the prince 
of this world/'* "the god of this world,"f and 
"the rulers of the darkness of this world." J 

We read of an evil being recognised as "the 
devil," who " abode not in the truth." § At one 
time, then, he had a habitation in it, and, therefore, 
in a celestial kingdom ; from which, with his com- 
pany, we may, from the statement at Jude 6, 
conclude that he was cast down. 

Jacob Behmen, or Bdhm, as I believe I ought 

* John xii. 31. t 2 Cor. iv. 4. 

X Eph. vi. 12. § John viii. 44. 



36 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

to say, states — and that not hypothetically, but ; 
as what he had received in a way of divine in- 
spiration — that this world in which we have our 
dwelling, was originally the glorious celestial 
kingdom of Lucifer and his angelic associates ; 
all good and happy beings, and as such partici- 
pating in, and enjoying, the riches and delights 
of eternity. But, using their power of self-will 
in admiring themselves, and in indulging ambitious 
desires of having an existence and scope of being 
independent of that prescribed to them by the 
will of their Creator, purposing, in short, to be 
as gods to themselves, they fell at once into an 
own life, and a condition of self-hood, by which 
they found themselves and their once glorious 
kingdom shattered into the darkness and confusion 
of chaos.* The light, love, and life of God being 
withdrawn from them, nothing was left in their 
nature but the fierce elements of fire, and wrath, 
and pride, and covetousness, and envy, and every 
hateful emotion of self-hood, which makes it such 
a source of torment, till its bitterness is ameliorated 

* " How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the 
morning ! " (Isaiah xiv. 12.) 



A Record of Facts and Feelings, 3 7 

by the sweetness of the divine life. On this ruined 
kingdom of Lucifer's, according to Jacob Bohm, 
the mercy of God descended as the Creator of 
a new world, out of the spoiled materials of the 
former one ; but not, as it would seem, to the 
expulsion of its original possessors, who have a 
right to the domain, and one which, it would 
appear, that they exercise with very great and 
lamentable success, in so far, at least, as consists 
in their obtaining immense influence in stimulating 
the human beings who are placed in their fallen 
kingdom, to revolt from the authority of God, and 
seek their happiness in a life of self-hood. 

Without undertaking to judge how far honest 
Jacob's views are true or fanciful, I must say 
that they seem to me to give something approach- 
ing to a solution of the vast and fearful problem 
of the origin of evil. Be this, however, as it may, 
one thing is certain, that to every human soul that 
yearns for deliverance from the spiritual evil which 
tempts and troubles him, there is redemption to be 
found as near to him as is the foe that assaults 
him. Only let him mind the first rule, and take 
the first step on which this redemption is founded ; 



38 The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 

only let him dread as his worst, most pressing, and 
most unceasingly present enemy, — his own will, 
his own fleshly life of self, — and learn to deny it ; 
only let him believe in and obey the shining of 
that light in his conscience which is given as 
his guide and saviour in this terrible dwelling- 
place — this "waste howling wilderness," through 
which he must travel to a happier habitation, and 
all will be well with him, and he may defy the 
devil and all his works. 



CHAPTER VI. 

/'"OPPOSITE to my suburban dwelling there 
resides a French artist who takes photo- 
graphic portraits ; and a young friend of mine 
having often asked me to sit to him for mine, I, 
this morning, made him a visit for that purpose. 

I have so perfectly outlived the idea of its being 
possible for a woman of nearly eighty looking 
any otherwise than grim and repulsive in a picture, 
that I really felt ashamed of presenting myself for 
the purpose of having myself so represented, and 
explained to M. Rousseau how anything so pre- 
posterous happened to occur. He evidently could 
not comprehend me ; the matter of old age being 
a thing of which, as far as I could judge, he had 
no conception. Like almost every one else to 
whom I happen to remark that I am now advanced 
in life, he treated the case as quite out of the 
question. I am often struck and also amused 



40 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

with the uniform resistance that is made to the 
least allusion to the irresistible fact of growing 
old. Whenever I touch upon it in conversation, 
and especially if I happen to add that I have little 
else to do in this world but to prepare for another, 
— I usually meet with the reply, — intended, doubt- 
less, to be consolatory and encouraging, of, " Oh 
dear, no ; — you may live these ten years yet." 
And then, as a confirmation of what I may hope 
for, I am told, generally, of some u father, grand- 
father, aunt, or uncle, of the speaker, who is five or 
six years older than I am, who goes about the 
house as blithe as a lark, and can walk more than 
a mile every day of their lives." If I reply to all 
this, as I commonly do, by saying, that if I thought 
I had ten years longer to live, it would give me 
anything but pleasure, for I had had quite enough 
of this world, and should be glad to leave it when- 
ever my time for dismissal arrived ; — I have 
observed that a cloud comes over the face of the 
persons with whom I am talking ; and I can per- 
ceive that I forthwith take my place in their esti- 
mation as a strange, gloomy, and somewhat dis- 
agreeable being. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 41 

Such a one I unquestionably should have been 
reckoned, if the originals of the portraits that filled 
the artist's room could have known the ruminations 
of my mind, as, during the interval of waiting till 
he was ready to attend to me, I mused upon their 
different presentments. 

As I am here reminded that probably the 
readers of these ruminations might be of their 
opinion also, I may as well withhold the expression 
of them. I cannot, however, forbear from express- 
ing in general terms, that I got a lesson out of the 
circumstance — for it impressed me with a strong 
conviction that the intense self-consciousness which 
this display of portraits betrayed, was the most 
inveterate of all our spiritual diseases. 

We may perceive this trait very strongly, and 
even ludicrously, exhibited in the habit now so 
common with the lowest classes of society of having, 
as they style it, " their pictures taken ! " Scarcely 
a servant-girl, or an errand-boy, with but a shilling 
a-week for wages, will grudge the spending a part 
of their pittance in offering this morsel of incense 
to their self-consciousness, and self-idolatry. But 
whilst I was thus musing upon the way in which 



42 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

this egotistical passion works upon other people, 
and was, perhaps, though unconsciously, pluming 
myself upon being delivered from its dominion, T 
was reminded of a passage in my life in which I 
had gone in, like the vainest of them, to have my 
picture taken ; intending, like them, to look as 
delightfully as I could, and hoping and expecting, 
as no doubt they did, to make a pleasant sensation 
by showing it to my friends and acquaintances. 
It is now some five and forty years since this 
happened, and as I was then, by that long interval, 
younger than I am now, I was, of course, better 
adapted to appear to advantage looking out of a 
picture frame. At all events I thought so : — and 
to give my dear self every possible chance of suc- 
cess, and being in London at the time, I went to 
one of the first artists in the crayon line of por- 
traits, (which was the one I made choice of,) and 
I paid a tolerably large sum, I remember, to Mr 
Slater, for the whole concern, which included the 
framing and glazing. 

On taking it home with me to Cambridge, 
without the least recollection of the vanity of 
such an act, I hung it up in my sitting-room, 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 43 

where, together with myself, it remained to re- 
ceive such tokens of admiration as might happen 
to be cast into the hat, which, pretty much as the 
crossing-sweeper does, (only I think he is the more 
respectable party in the act,) we thus held out to 
receive them. Whenever a woman places herself 
upon a pedestal, and attitudinizes, there is always 
one person in particular whom she has in view, 
whose interest and admiration she especially de- 
sires and expects to excite. It was so with me 
on this occasion. Not one atom did I think or 
care about the impression which the picture might 
make upon anybody else. But here, — oh, here / — 
the result was infolded in I cannot tell you what 
a number of rainbow hues. The dreams — the 
dramas my imagination and I rehearsed of what 
he would do — and what he would say respecting 
this picture — are not to be told. In due time he 
returned to college, for he was away at the first 
exhibition of this testimony of my vanity. He 
was not my lover, nor ever likely to be; for he 
was a person who had long settled down upon a 
single life as that of his decided preference and 
adoption ; added to which he was old enough to 



44 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

be my father ; and in kind offices of earnest and 
affectionate friendship, had been more than a 
father to me. But it was not as my father that I 
wanted him to gaze and smile upon this picture ; 
for fancy and I had portrayed him as gazing and 
smiling at it just as a man might be expected to 
do who says in his heart, — " If I had been thirty 
years younger, the original of that picture would 
have been more to me than she is now." 

And here, to exonerate myself from the ex- 
ceeding folly which such notions, wholly unwar- 
ranted by anything approaching to fact, may 
seem to indicate, I may say, that occasionally a 
chance word of sympathy and affection, dropped 
as it were from the strong excitement induced 
by looking upon the painful circumstances that 
enveloped my early life, did, and not unreason- 
ably, awaken a sweet idea that there was some- 
thing of a warmer feeling towards me at the 
bottom of my old friend's heart. I never for a 
moment expected it to develop into anything of 
a serious kind. I knew my man a great deal 
too well for that. But to have it there at all, 
— to have the least atom of ground for thinking 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 45 

that he had a bit of a fight to make, — not to let 
himself love me,' — oh, this was sweet food for fancy 
to feed upon ! 

And so, as I have said, did fancy and I feed 
and feast, till fact (what a disagreeable thing a 
fact sometimes is !) came and overturned the table 
at which we had placed ourselves for our banquet. 

The usual interchanges of talk having passed, 
when my friend made his first call after his return 
to college, he walked up to the picture and looked 
at it earnestly a few moments, but without the least 
trace of the expected smile. On the contrary, his 
look was so grave that I felt as if an ice-bolt had 
been shot into my heart. " I don't think you con- 
sider it a likeness?" said I, finding that he kept 
silence. 

" I know that it is meant for you," he replied ; 
" but if I had seen it anywhere else, I should not 
have guessed it." After again looking at it for a 
few moments, " It is nicely done," he said ; " one 
sees a master's hand at a glance. He has done 
the best he could ; — but the fact is, that yours is 
not a face for a picture. No face is which has not 
some prominent feature and marked expression in 



46 The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 

it. Such a face, for instance, as So-and-so's," and he 
named a person known to us both, " There," said 
he, "is a face that would make a picture speak. 
But you have no such marked expression in your 
face." More he said — but this was enough — and 
more than enough, when, just as he was taking 
leave he said, — " I think, if I were you, I would not 
have that picture hanging up in my sitting-room. 
I know you are not actuated by vanity in doing so; 
but there are plenty of ill-natured people who 
would be likely to say that you were." 

You may rely upon it that before my friend 
had got to the end of the street, the picture was 
taken down, and in order to get it out of my 
sight, I made a present of it to one of my 
relations. 



CHAPTER VII. 

T N turning this morning to the letters of Ger- 
hard Tersteegen, I was struck by this re- 
mark of his to a correspondent : — " I often think 
that if we that are awakened would only endure 
four years of probation in silent mortification and 
prayer before we showed ourselves publicly, our 
subsequent activity would be a little purer and 
less injurious to the kingdom of God both exter- 
nally and internally. The flesh and its progeny, 
which finds a life of mortification too strait for it, 
and too disagreeable, may breathe very easily, 
and even maintain itself in every outward spiritual 
and apparently profitable exercise ; whilst, in the 
meantime, the mystery of iniquity at the bottom, 
remains unperceived and unmodified." 

I know, from my own experience, how prompt 
is the impulse to be doing in a way of working 



48 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

or talking about spiritual things, as soon as there 
is a new apprehension of them ; and that, under 
a notion of being made useful to our fellow- 
creatures, we are apt to indulge much more of 
our natural pride and self-conceit in taking upon 
ourselves the province of teachers, than we are 
at all aware of. I had been so deeply imbued 
with the habit and love of writing, and had so 
much time upon my hands, that I felt a kind of 
necessity of continuing that occupation after Mr 
Simeon had influenced me to give up novel-writ- 
ing. I felt that I must write, — there was no ques- 
tion about that. The question was, " What may 
I write ? " Sermons, to be sure ; or religious 
essays. 

"Religious Thoughts" seemed to be a nice 
title, and no doubt I could produce a nice work 
to fit it. So I forthwith set about it, and when my 
book was finished I read some of it in manuscript 
to Mr Simeon, who expressed a good opinion of 
it ; as did a few other people. But, on the whole, 
it fell to the ground, though stated on the title- 
page as by the author of "The Favourite of 
Nature." As I published it at my own expense, 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 49 

of course I lost money by it, but I gained some 
experience that was worth its price ; for I was 
made to perceive, that if I meant to preach, I 
must look for a very circumscribed circle of 
readers, and be prepared to forego all fame and 
profit from my literary labours. I was not quite 
sufficiently grounded in my religious views to feel 
the indifference which I ought to have done at 
this result ; but, after a time, and when I had 
been subdued by some sharp trials, I was enabled 
to regard my " Religious Thoughts " as, under 
the guise of devotional stimulus, wearing, in point 
of fact, though at the time undetected by me, so 
much of the old leaven of vanity, — so much of the 
old Adam in canonicals, that I could scarcely 
bear to look at the book ; and I am sure I could 
not now write such a one. I should prefer writing 
in a strain as droll and entertaining as much of 
what I have been reading in the " Life of Father 
Matthew." The peculiar eccentricity of the Irish 
nature, as developed in various of its details, ex- 
ceedingly amuses, and at the same time I may 
say, that it affects me ; inasmuch as it revives so 
vivid a remembrance of traits in my poor father's 



50 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

character and habits, which at the time made me 
angry and often disrespectful in my behaviour to 
him, that I can only lament I had not known 
better how impossible it was for him, as an Irish- 
man, to be otherwise than he was. 

" What a solution you give me," said a person 
once to me, when I happened to remark that I 
had the Irish nature in me on my father's side ; 
" what a solution of so much in you, that it 
always puzzled me to understand." 

" I don't wonder at that," I replied, " for I am 
often puzzled to understand myself." 

But, truly, I do think that the incongruity in 
the individual's character seems more remarkable 
when, as in my own case, there is a mingling of 
the English nature with the Irish. I always say 
that I could make two hemispheres of my interior 
state, and draw a line, to a hair's-breadth, of the 
temperament I inherit from my parents. My 
mother was not only English, but very English in 
her nature. Reserved with strangers, loving 
quiet, orderly, averse to change her habits, firm, 
to a degree of obstinacy, in holding her opinions, 
and hating with perfect hatred all sudden and 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 51 

violent doings ; never herself setting about any- 
thing, or liking to see any one else set about things 
in a hurry. She was, in short, the very antipodes 
of my father, who was always in a hurry. One 
word is enough to describe him — he was Irish, and 
very Irish. Having these two opposite influences 
to operate upon me, I am persuaded that the Irish 
part of me shows to much greater prevalence, and 
often produces to observers much greater surprise 
than it would do, if it stood unchallenged and un- 
mitigated by my mother's share in me ; whilst the 
conflict to myself between the wildness of the Irish 
impulsiveness and the English repose, and unwill- 
ingness to be active and forward, is often really 
painful, though, as where anything Irish is con- 
cerned, it is sometimes extremely ludicrous. All 
that can be said, is, that we must bear with our 
own inconsistencies, and fight the good fight. I 
sometimes think and hope that great allowance 
will be made in the final award for those that have 
Irish blood in their veins. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TV /T Y dear old friend, Professor Smyth, had very- 
little patience with people who talked 
about the wretchedness of this world — its being a 
" vale of tears " — and so on. He always said that, 
for himself, he had led a very cheerful life ; and 
should be glad, if it were possible, to live it over 
again. 

He was very much a man of system ; and I 
make no doubt had constructed a plan by which to 
get as much enjoyment out of life as it was capable 
of affording. 

It was his avowed conviction, that in order to 
be established in the course of cheerfulness, which 
he considered the summum bonum of earthly good, 
we must, as much as possible, abstain from anato- 
mising the affairs of life ; and keeping to a habit 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 5 3 

of touch and go, act as the bee does, when, hovering 
over a bed of flowers or herbs, she extracts what 
sweets they offer, and is off. Thus he did himself 
with the circumstances that presented themselves 
to his notice. He did not stop to probe their 
origin, or ask any questions about them. It was 
enough for him that he had so drawn out the 
chart by which he was to travel, that only people 
and things that promised well from their talents 
their position, and their surroundings, were such 
as he meddled with. All this providing for his 
own particular comfort, he considered to be not 
only allowable, but a measure of wisdom and 
prudence, — as, looking only to the things of time 
and sense, it undoubtedly was. " We were placed 
here," he would sometimes say to me, when, from 
a nature and a home-atmosphere as opposite to 
his as darkness is to light, I have spoken of life as 
a scene of sorrow, as, God knows, for the greater 
part of my acquaintance with it I found it to 
be ; " we were here," he would observe, " to 
make the best use we could of our opportunities, 
and their influences, whether as it related to 
mental power, or to society, or to anything else 



54 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

that acted on our minds, and could be serviceable 
to their improvement and happiness ; and the first 
step in turning things to account, was always to 
make the best of them, and this was to be done 
by overlooking, as much as possible, the evil, and 
getting all the good out of them which they 
possessed." 

He could do this ; for, in the mode of existence 
which fell to his lot, it was peculiarly practicable ; 
seeing that it was of a kind which he could mould 
and manage as he liked, in order to make it assimi- 
late with his determination to enjoy a cheerful life. 
As a fellow of a college, and filling the chair of the 
best professorship in the university, his position 
was, at once, well defined and distinguished, and 
he was free from all disturbing desires of rising 
higher. There were no domestic cares to trouble 
him ; and as he possessed a calm and equable 
temperament, it was not difficult for him to stand 
aloof from all the storms and shipwrecks which 
follow the fortunes of the restless and the impas- 
sioned part of mankind. And thus it, happened, 
that, up to the age of seventy, at which I believe 
he had arrived when he said, " / have lived a very 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 55 

cheerfid life" &c, he could give that pleasant tes- 
timony with perfect truth and satisfaction. But 
there was a long era yet before his course was 
ended ; for he reached the age of eighty-four ; and, 
as far as I could learn, this was a period of great 
trial, and that on the side of his nature and habits, 
which was of the most importance in promoting 
the cheerfulness which he regarded as the right 
aim of the human being to obtain and preserve ; 
and which he had himself so especially endea- 
voured to do. Now, I am not saying that he was 
wrong in acting thus, considering the stand-point 
from whence he regarded human life, and the 
principles of guiding it aright. But I question the 
rectitude of his stand-point — I consider it to be 
one from which the deductions he made could not 
fail to deceive him. For, but few things could be 
more erroneous I conceive, and testify more surely 
to some misapprehension of the right lessons to be 
learned in our passage through the world, than any 
old person's wishing to live his life over again. 
Widely different is the testimony of Mrs Barbauld, 
given in her eightieth year, and which runs in this 
wise : — 



56 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

" Say ye, who through this round of fourscore years 
Have felt its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears ; 
Say, what is life ; — ye veterans who have trod, 
Step following step, its flowery, thorny road ? 
Enough of love and fancy, joy and hope, 
To fan desire, and give the passions scope ; 
Enough of disappointment, sorrow, pain, 
To seal the wise man's sentence all is vain, 
And quench the wish to live those years again." 

There was a mistake in the estimate which the 
professor made of the proper purpose of life ; for 
he overlooked the re-action which always accom- 
panies a state of happiness ; and which, for the 
wise purpose of causing us to " rejoice with trem- 
bling," is ordained to occur in every human destiny. 
It is so fixed a fact that a period of enjoyment will 
be succeeded by one of suffering, that reflecting 
and religious persons have a secret dread of an 
unusual state of felicity. I remember, that in the 
life of Dr Arnold, in a letter written but a short 
time before his sudden and unexpected death, he 
mentions having just returned from Fox How, 
" after a few weeks of awful happiness." 

In the life of Lacordaire it is stated that when 
he was preaching with immense success at Lyons, 
a friend one day discovered him " kneeling before 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 57 

his crucifix, with his head in his hands, absorbed 
in prayer, which was interrupted by his sobs." On 
inquiring the cause, " I am afraid/' replied Lacor- 
daire, " of this success/' * 

The professor was not by any means to be con- 
sidered as an irreligious man ; he was much too wise 
and prudent, and too well aware of the duties that 
belonged to his place in the creation as a rational 
being, not to have some established principles on 
the subject of religion. But I consider them, like 
his other practical principles, to have been only 
the deductions of a calm philosophical mind, which 
looked to the real, and the reasonable, and the 
immediately useful, in its views of life, and 
adopted only those which suggested the right 
path through the labyrinth of this world. 

That it was 

" A mighty maze, but not without a plan," 

he would readily have conceded ; but, at the same 
time, he would have asserted that our business was 
to discover the best way of threading "the maze/' 
and not to concern ourselves about "the plan," 

* The Inner Life of Lacordaire, p. 372. 



58 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

which was obviously beyond our capacity to 
fathom. All this might suffice whilst his facul- 
ties of enjoying society lasted ; but for the trial 
of deafness, which embittered the latter period of 
his life, he was, as I have been told, but ill pre- 
pared, and therefore it was acutely felt by him. 

"Don't ask me, — pray don't ask me," a lady 
told me was his reply, when she was urging him 
to come to a music party at her house, at which a 
celebrated vocalist was to perform. At hearing 
this, I could have wept, to think of the dismal 
alteration which time must have made in the 
chief enjoyment of my dear old friend, before he 
could have begged not to be asked to a music 
party ! 

For more than a year previous to his death, he 
took entirely to his bed ; not, as I understood, 
from any need of doing so, but, I imagine, to keep 
his mind prepared for the great change at hand, it 
being a prominent trait in his common-sense view 
of things, to be ready for whatever was inevitable. 
As it is n out of the abundance of the heart that 
the mouth speaketh," the thought of one so long 
and so intimately associated with the earlier part 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 59 

of my life, — one to whom I owed so much at that 
period, not merely as my friend, but in no slight 
measure as my educator, has often so deeply im- 
pressed me, and especially in connexion with his 
remark of " / have lived a very cheerful life',' that I 
feel it a relief to throw off some of the reflections 
thus suggested. 

They are not, I confess, of a cheerful character, 
and strange as to some minds such a preference 
may seem, I would rather adopt, as nearer the 
truth than the professor's summary of what life 
had done for him, this testimony of Dryden's : — 

" When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat, 
Yet, fool'd by hope, men favour the deceit — 
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay ; 
The morrow 's falser than the former day — 
Lies more ; and when it says we shall be blest 
With some new joy, — cuts off what we possest. 
Strange cozenage : None would live past years again, 
Yet all hope pleasure from what still remain, 
And, from the dregs of life, think to receive 
What its first sprightly runnings could not give. 
I 'm tired of waiting for this chymic gold, 
Which fools us young, and beggars us when old." 



CHAPTER IX. 

T HAVE just finished reading the Memoirs of 
Baron Bunsen by his widow ; a book which 
has deeply occupied my mind for the last fortnight. 
I began it with the purpose of reading it straight 
through ; but the continual divergence from do- 
mestic details, and the portraiture they exhibit, 
which I love, — to subjects of politics, which I 
hate, — soon prompted me to skip over, perhaps, 
the greater part of these ponderous volumes. 
Much of what I did read, greatly interested, and, 
I think, instructed me, though it was more by the 
contrast it exhibited between my own views of 
human life, and those which seem to have been 
the views of Bunsen, than any sympathy which* I 
had with them. 

That he was a man of a singularly ardent, 
active, happy temperament, full of healthy hope- 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 6 1 

fulness, and joyous anticipations of success in 
whatever he undertook, is strikingly manifest. 
Nothing morbid, nothing low or mean, nothing 
but what was manly, and worthy of a man, and a 
man exalted by position as well as by nature, is 
to be traced as characteristic of him from one 
end to the other of this memoir. 

Perhaps, when the task of recording it fell to 
the hand of one to whom he was so near and 
dear, it was scarcely possible that the traits of 
his mental superiority should not be somewhat 
too radiant. Dr M'Cosh, in an extract from one 
of his works inserted in this memoir,* observes, 
" Respected and beloved by all, except the 
enemies of civil and religious liberty, his (Bun- 
sen's) speculations, philosophical or theological, 
carried, I found, very little weight in Germany." 

I should expect, that with persons whose 
habits of thought inclined them to cultivate in- 
ward and spiritual views of truth, his writings 
would not find acceptance. I know nothing of 
them, and have no wish to know anything. The 
impression of his nature left upon my mind by 
* Vol. ii. p. 473. 



62 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

this memoir, is significant of so much eagerness 
and restlessness, and such a perpetual rushing out 
of mind, that I cannot conceive it possible he should 
have been acquainted with religion in its interior 
and mystical aspect, which is the only aspect of 
it that I love to contemplate. So far, therefore, 
from desiring to read any of his books, or to 
study the subjects he is for ever talking about, 
I turn over page after page in this biography, 
as fast as I can, to get away from them. The 
simple, single eye, that fills the whole body with 
light — not a groping curiosity after the dead and 
buried bones of antiquity — is the thing which I 
love and long for. What does it matter to me, 
or to any one else, what king of Israel reigned at 
Jerusalem three or four thousand years ago, or 
what was either his name or nature ? but it matters 
much for the benefit of my mind that I should 
drink in the little drippings of living water which 
here and there gush forth from the pages of the 
Bible. 

Bunsen's dying ejaculation, "Let us walk in the 
light of the Eternal ! " remains with me, as does 
also the painfully interesting account of his last 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 63 

hours. One would then not lose the smallest 
portion of his utterances, though all that he has 
said in the day of health and strength, touching 
his bibelwerk, and his other literary projects, may 
be easily passed over. 

There is someting very affecting, reminding one 
of " a song in the night, when a holy solemnity is 
kept," in the prostration of so active and energetic 
a mind as Bunsen's on a lingering death-bed ; but, 
at the same time, the calm and divine instruction 
it is well fitted to impart is very precious. Here 
we see every thought and desire centred and 
absorbed in the great but simple reality — the act 
of dying — the greatest of all realities ! and the 
testimony which he gives forth at that time in 
the words, "Now, first, one begins to perceive 
what a dark existence it is that we have here 
passed through,"* is a lesson never to pass away, 
in its influence over a thoughtful mind. Sad 
indeed is it, but true as it is sad, that, as some 
old Puritan divine observes, " We learn how we 
ought to have lived about half-an-hour before 
we die." 

* Vol. ii. p. 572. 



64 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

This great mistake is made by persons pro- 
ceeding from childhood to old age, as they most 
of them do, without any faith in the perpetual 
presence and power and inflexible agency of 
spiritual truth. They have the most implicit con- 
fidence in the facts of the multiplication table ; 
and base their commercial dealings, without a 
doubt, upon what they propound ; but only sug- 
gest that the law of moral truth is quite as cer- 
tain and immutable as that of numbers, and they 
will laugh you to scorn as a fanatic. The con- 
sequence of this infidelity in the spiritual and 
invisible world of mind, is the inevitable one of a 
want of government, and a want of repose in the 
inner man. Where there is no faith in a ruling 
principle of conduct, there is nothing to fall back 
upon in moments of trial and temptation, but the 
power of pride, which prompts to a regard to 
character, to appearance, and other matters that 
lie on the surface. I shall not attempt to depre- 
ciate the power of pride ; for, in the absence of 
religious principle, I think it is of immense value ; 
and have not the slightest doubt that it acts as a 
protecting and elevating force upon more than 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 65 

half the world. But it is a hard, often a cruel, 
always a selfish and unamiable quality. It has 
its use, no doubt ; and so have a great many 
other ugly feelings in human nature ; but it has 
not within it the elements of truth and peace ; 
and never did, and never can, make anybody 
happy. Nothing can do this but mental repose, 
founded on acquaintance with Truth, which is 
only another word for — God. " Acquaint now thy- 
self with him, and be at peace/' (Job xxii. 21.) 
But how is this acquaintance to be formed ? 
Where, and with what, must we commence as 
its foundation ? We must educate the young, 
and seek to establish them in sound, religious 
principles, would be the general answer; and a 
very wise and proper one to this query. But 
then comes another, respecting which there would 
be unanimity enough in the replies it would elicit. 
To the question, " What is the best method to 
adopt in trying to establish them in religious 
principles?" I dare say all classes of religionists 
would reply, " They must be well grounded in 
acquaintance with the Word of God — or, in other 

words, the Bible." 

E 



66 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

Now here, as I conceive, the whole gist of the 
matter lies. I will be bold to say, that no one 
loves more than I do, or more frequently feeds 
upon, the precious truths that are stored in the 
Bible ; but it is something nearer to me, and 
more living, that I recognise as the Word of 
God; and which, as an "engrafted" power, I am 
to know as "able to save my soul," (James i. 21.) 
That this is the principle to form, and establish, 
in the process of education, is plainly set forth 
in the words of the Psalmist : u Behold, thou 
desirest truth in the inward parts ; and in the 
hidden part thou shalt make me to know wis- 
dom." Now, " truth in the inward parts," — truth 
perceived, and believed in, from a feeling sense 
of it in the conscience, — this, and this alone, is 
the proper and sufficient basis on which to form 
a well-principled being. The instruction usually 
given at national schools, and most other educa- 
tional institutions, in so far as it is of a religious 
character, consists in reading and learning by 
heart certain portions of the Scriptures, and hear- 
ing them expounded, much after the fashion of 
the Church Catechism. The result is just what 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 6j 

might be expected, — that, as far as the "inward 
parts," in which truth is desired of the Lord, and 
" the hidden part," in which He is pleased to 
impart wisdom, are concerned, — they are as un- 
touched and disregarded by the school-boy and 
girl, as to their feeling the power of what they read, 
or write, or hear, or repeat, as the way in which 
they were each of them made " a member of 
Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the 
kingdom of heaven," was ignored by them at 
their infant baptism. As babes, as youths, as 
adults, all this phraseology is a bundle of words 
without any other meaning than something to 
be learned ; — perhaps, as something to be produc- 
tive of benefit in a reward. Sharp-witted boys 
and girls will soon get a knack of answering glibly 
the questions of a school inspector, and obtain 
thereby the prize of a Bible or Prayer-book, — 
perhaps both, — not, probably, that they care a 
rush for them as books to refer to. "Jack Shep- 
pard," or " The Mysteries of London," would have 
been to them a gold mine in comparison. It is 
as testimony to be made useful in promoting the 
purposes of self-love that these rewards are sought ; 



68 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

for to read, inscribed in the page of Bible or Prayer- 
book, that it was " a reward to A. or B. for good 
conduct at such a national school," would of itself 
be sufficient testimony to most inquirers after char- 
acter. 

That it is no testimony worth accepting, when 
taken by itself, I can, from my own experience, 
affirm ; as it is not long since I sent a girl from 
my house as a thief, and the most determined 
liar I ever met with, — an amateur in the vice, 
inasmuch as she indulged in it not merely to 
screen her delinquencies, but to invent fables for 
self-aggrandisement; — and this was a girl who 
had been eight years at a large national school 
in the neighbourhood, and had obtained from it 
a Bible and Prayer-book with her name inscribed 
in them "as a reward for good conduct." 

It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the eight 
years' instruction of this girl had established her 
in no principle of religion, or in anything but 
hypocrisy and falsehood. The great error of 
almost all the religious instruction imparted to 
the young, is, that it sets out with the mistake 
of calling the Bible the Word of God, and, as 



, 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 69 

such, investing it with the authority which be- 
longs to a superior thing ; even that Word of 
God which was before books were, and will be 
when they are gone ; and which is " quick and 
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, 
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul 
and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and 
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the 
heart." * 

It is only by an appeal to that in the conscience 
of the human being which witnesses to the exist- 
ence of this Almighty interior power that is 
u quick and powerful, and sharper than any 
two-edged sword/' — it is only by sounding the 
key-note of " truth in the inward parts," of which 
a portion is given in the " true light that lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world," — it is 
only, in short, by making religious education 
heart-work, feeling-work, faith-work, that any 
principles worth the name of principle can be 
developed in the youthful mind. 

For here again is a fatal error in the work of 
education, that people almost wholly overlook 

* Hebrews iv. 12. 



yo The Solace of a Solitaire: 

that it is a process of development, and that it 
is what is stored within the child's mind, not 
what is poured into it from without, that will form 
the influences that are to govern its conduct. 
God has given the understanding for intellectual 
culture ; also the taste or genius for the fine arts ; 
and in these particular faculties, or in the exercise 
of them, there is so much scope for promoting the 
interest of self-love, that young people will often 
drink in what is offered to them for the cultiva- 
tion of this side of their nature with great avidity, 
and thus the development of their respective 
talents for this or that in the form of personal 
accomplishment, is a work, comparatively, of much 
facility. 

But it is far otherwise with the development of 
the divine seed of truth which lies in the con- 
science. Everything fights against the growth of 
this faculty. The educators themselves are not 
prompt in making appeals to it, for those that 
reprove for particular faults, have need to stand 
acquitted of practising them themselves. " Thou 
which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself ? " 
asks the apostle. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 7 1 

Alas, no ; for by far the greater part of teachers 
the answers must be NO as it regards the teaching 
of the conscience. Yet here the whole matter of 
educing good principles in the child's mind lies. 
There is nothing formed there that is stable and 
fitted to bear up the mind in its passage through 
the vicissitudes of life. 

But do you mean to say, then, that there is no 
such thing ever taught or learned as religious prin- 
ciple ? it will be asked. 

God forbid I should think or say anything so 
shocking ! I believe that sound, enduring, reli- 
gious principles are to be developed out of the 
soul ; but I think it is the work of God's Spirit to 
perform it. 

On this point, however, there is so much to be 
said, and I have already prolonged this entry to 
an unusual length, that I will wait till another day 
before I proceed with it. 



CHAPTER X. 

SUPPOSE there are few students of the Scrip- 
tures who do not sometimes find themselves 
arrested and impressed by some phrase or passage 
in them which they must have read and re-read a 
hundred times, but which seems for the first time 
to unfold to them the fulness of its meaning. It 
was thus I was this morning struck with the ex- 
pression at Romans viii. 21, of "the bondage of 
corruption/' It seemed to me as if I had never be- 
fore perceived the amazing force of truth, and a 
terrible truth too, which this phrase embodied. 
Of what use then, I thought, is all this talk about 
reform, and popular liberty, and electioneering 
privileges, and the rest of it ? If people are under 
bondage to their own will, and it is a corrupt, self- 
loving, self-seeking, self-indulgent will, as that of 
every ninety-nine out of a hundred may be said to 



The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 73 

be, in so far as the power to indulge it extends ; 
what will they do but exercise their extended 
liberty in extending their own bondage to corrup- 
tion ? Probably nothing else, was the reply of my 
inward monitor. But you have nothing to do with 
that. The question for you to ask is, how far, in 
the exercise of your own will, you have just ground 
for believing it in some measure emancipated from 
its house of bondage. 

I think that a remark of Mr Cecil's concerning 
his spiritual condition at the closing period of his 
life pretty accurately describes my own case. 
" Bleeding and cauterising," (by which figurative 
language he means affliction and trials,) " have 
done much for me, and so has old age." 

Still, I feel even yet, if not exactly " the bondage 
of corruption," enough of its power, to cause a 
conflict in keeping it in subjection. The insidious 
nature of self-will causes it to assume such specious 
forms, that very often it seems not only a lawful, 
but rather a praiseworthy thing to grant it indul- 
gence On the subject of books, for instance, 
when they are of a moral and instructive kind, and 
the interest they excite is a healthy one, it is 



74 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

surely more than allowable (if you possess the 
power) to purchase them if you wish to do so, — and 
thus reasoning, I go on buying books, very few of 
which I care to look into a second time. 

But why not subscribe to Mudie's, and hire the 
books you want ? 

I have done this till I am tired. One does not 
know what one wants or wishes for in such an 
amplitude of supply as Mudie offers. I have 
therefore long since come to the conclusion that I 
will buy the books I wish to read. It is rather a 
comfort to me to find that they do disappoint me, 
and that in this quarter I am broken off, or rather, 
that one link more is broken that binds me in 
bondage to the corruption of my own will. I am 
quite aware that these views which I am here 
enunciating would sound like foolishness to most 
persons. But I have lived long enough, and have 
suffered enough, and have made mistakes more 
than enough, on the side of allowing my will and 
wishes what looked like reasonable indulgences, to 
detect a snare in almost every pleasurable thing 
that offers itself to my acceptance. 

I have often meditated upon those passages in 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 7 5 

the Scriptures, chiefly to be found in the Old 
Testament, which speak of a false deluding spirit 
" which deceiveth the whole world," and have 
been led to set great store by them, as infolding 
in the Oriental way of metaphor, some deep prac- 
tical truth ; whereas, if regarded in their literal 
expression, they seem to convey a meaning which 
has something strange, and sometimes something 
shocking in it, For instance, the command at 
Ezekiel, ix. 5, 6 : — 

" Go ye through the city, and smite : let not 
your eye spare, neither have ye pity : slay utterly 
old and young, both maids, and little children, and 
women : but come not near any man upon whom 
is the mark." 

Whilst I take this in its literal meaning, I can 
get nothing out of it but what I would rather not 
get ; but when I regard it as desiring me, in figu- 
rative language, to resist to the death, however 
innocent and harmless it may look, every motion 
of my self-will which is not sanctioned by the con- 
sent or " mark " that conscience sets upon it, I 
obtain a very profound and useful lesson in the 
science of self-control. 



7 6 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

But are we never to yield the smallest indul- 
gence to will or wish ? you ask. 

Well, I can only answer as it respects myself ; 
but mine, from inward nature and outward circum- 
stances, is so peculiar a case that I scarcely think 
it right to make it a general precedent. A life of 
loneliness is so undefended from the inroad and 
dominion of those wishes and fancied wants of 
self-hood, which, in the bosom of family claims, 
are necessarily somewhat restrained, that it de- 
mands unusual care to keep it in proper subjec- 
tion. Assuredly, when I look back upon the long 
vista through which I have travelled, I can clearly 
discern that the periods of it which have been 
most favourable to my spiritual health and 
strength, have been those in which, by suffering 
of mind or body, I have been the most disinclined 
and incapacitated for the gratification of my will 
for even what might be deemed allowable indul- 
gences. 

Some words which I met with in the letters of 
Isaac Penington many years since, and which, I 
suppose, he might have addressed to much such a 
person as myself, have remained with me as a 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 7 7 

kind of prophecy, which, " whether I will hear, or 
whether I will forbear," must be fulfilled. They 
were these : — " Thou must die exceedingly, in- 
wardly, and deeply, again and again." 

My own case may, as I have just remarked, be 
a peculiar one ; but I am quite certain that, com- 
paratively but very few, even of religious persons, 
are in any sufficient degree aware and afraid of 
the insidious way in which the false spirit that 
rules in the darkness of the earthly nature embon- 
dages them to self-indulgence, and saps the new 
and better nature which should grow into strength 
that would enable them to rule and regulate it 
aright. 

The fact is, as I meant to say in what I wrote 
upon the subject of popular education, that the 
sincere endeavour to establish a ruling principle of 
religion in the soul, involves in it a necessity for 
dwelling under the authority of conscience. Now, 
conscience is a ruler of a very rigid character, and 
admits of no evasions, no qualifications, no adapt- 
ing of its dictates to the desires of the will. It 
shows the right path, and demands obedience to 
what it exhibits, which may probably (we may, 



78 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

perhaps, say certainly, when the will is intensely 
eager in compassing its wishes) require some 
sacrifice of inclination. 

Hence it usually happens that, except under 
somewhat rare and healthy conditions of soul, 
conscience, which ought to be, and is manifestly 
intended to be, the highest and the most carefully 
cultivated and reverenced of all our internal 
powers, is just that one of them which is most 
disregarded, in so far as consists in regarding it as 
a witness for God. It is too close, too inflexible, 
too piercing a witness, and has too much of divin- 
ity in it to be accepted as the arbiter of our con- 
duct, and the source of that which constitutes 
what we recognise as our religion. It is much 
more agreeable to have this placed a little farther 
from us, and thus it happens that people will take 
up with any sort of religious profession, rather 
than that which deals with the conscience. In 
fact, I am persuaded from long and close observa- 
tion, that just as people shrink and recede from 
the dominion of truth as witnessed to by con- 
science in the secret of their souls, so they com- 
monly set themselves to the strenuous observance 



A Record of Facts and Feelings, 79 

of the outward forms and ceremonies of religion ; 
for, as Bishop Butler well observes, " mankind 
have in all ages been greatly prone to place their 
religion in peculiar positive rites, by way of equi- 
valent for obedience to moral precepts." — (" Anal- 
ogy,'' p. 165.) 



CHAPTER XL 

KNEW a shrewd and sincerely pious woman, 
but plain even to abruptness in expressing 
her sentiments, who used to cut short all flowery 
views of " the sweetness of devotional feeling," 
when she had the least suspicion that the votary 
of this emotional sense of religion knew little, and 
wished to know less of it on the side of discipline, 
by saying, " Ay, ay, all that fine feeling is just 
embroidery ; we don't .slide upon our backs into 
heaven. We must suffer, — we must be turned in- 
side out, — we must be ground to powder, and then 
the residue of us may be worth something." I am 
afraid my old friend would have been apt to scout, 
as too fanciful, any poetical imagery on the sub- 
ject of self-subjugation; but, for my own part, 
though as little addicted to the love of spiritual 
(t embroidery " as she herself was, I could not help 



7 he Solace of a Solitaire, &c. Si 

taking into my common-place book these lines 
which I met with the other day, as a help to con- 
firm me in the conviction I have long felt, that it is 
only by suffering that we are taught and built up 
in the ways of God — 

" This leaf, this stone, it is thy heart, 
It must be crush'd by pain and smart, 
It must be cleansed by sorrow's art, 
Ere it will yield a fragrance sweet, 
Ere it will shine a jewel meet, 
To lay before thy dear Lord's feet/' * 

The necessity of discipline accompanies us 
through life, and the greatest of mistakes is 
made by thinking that it ends with our school- 
days. The fact is, that the real education which is 
to be of any use to us only then begins ; for it is 
only as we are thrown upon our own hands, and 
emancipated from the control of our spiritual 
" pastors and masters," that we begin to under- 
stand the value and necessity of having some curb 
placed upon our nature. And this is a lesson 
which we are a long while learning ; in fact, it is 
one that is never learned by some people, in so far 
as its being reduced to practice is concerned. 

* Goulburn's "Personal Religion," p. 50. 



82 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

It is quite certain, and a very sad certainty it 
is, that there may be the most clear perception 
and belief in the necessity of self-denial, and at 
the same time a habit of yielding to the prompt- 
ings of impulse and inclination, in a way that is 
ruinous to all establishment in a self-respecting 
and respectable life. This too common case is 
touched upon with his usual graphic power by 
Mr Crabbe, when, speaking of this "bondage of 
corruption " to which I am alluding, he says — 

" 'Tis said the offending man will sometimes sigh, 
And say, ' My God, in what a dream am I ! 
I will awake ;' — but as the day proceeds, 
The weaken'd mind the day's indulgence needs ; 
Hating himself at every step he takes, 
His mind approves the virtue he forsakes, 
And yet forsakes her. — Oh, how sharp the pain 
Our vice, ourselves, our habits to disdain ; 
To go where never yet in peace we went, 
To feel our hearts can bleed, yet not relent ; 
To sigh, yet not recede ; to grieve, yet not repent." * 

The seduction of those things that please the 
senses is a strange and overpowering mystery; 
but it is only one amongst a myriad of other 
mysteries which in our present finite state we 
cannot understand. This, however, we are soon 
* " Tales of the Hall— Boys at School." 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 83 

made to understand ; that the seducing and beau- 
tiful form in which many objects present them- 
selves to the senses, we must not only disregard, 
but denounce. No doubt, there are restraints 
from the force of circumstances, — from the power 
of pride, and other influences, which may suffice 
to keep things smooth on the surface, and furnish 
the check to the earthly mind and will, which we 
soon find it stands in need of. But this, though 
valuable as far as it goes, is not the right check — 
not the right governor. It comes out of the do- 
main of Reason, which is not of itself powerful 
enough to supply the force that is wanted to 
govern " those unruly wills and affections of sinful 
men," which, in the lines I have just quoted, Mr 
Crabbe so well describes as their frequent task- 
masters. 

As another poet has said, in reference to the 
state that must be passed through, and patiently 
endured, before any radical reform takes place in 
the case of a penitent — ■ 

" Habitual evils change not on a sudden, 
But many days must pass, and many sorrows 
Conscious remorse, and anguish must be felt, 



84 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

To curb desire, and break the stubborn will, 
And work a second nature in the soul." * 

" And is it not Reason that acts in this renewal 
of the nature ? " I shall doubtless be asked. To 
which I reply, " Unquestionably." 

" Always," says Dr Whichcote, " apply your- 
self to the Reason of the thing; for there is an 
Almighty power in this." 

Yes, there is an Almighty power in Reason — 
a divine light ; — but we are to remember that it 
is a reflected, and not a primary light. I do not 
pretend to give it as originating in any specula- 
tions of my own ; for I have met with it some- 
where in my reading, but I cannot recollect 
where ; — but it seems to me that there is a 
striking analogy between the two lights of sun 
and moon, and the light of the Spirit of God, 
and that of Reason. For, as when things are 
seen in the radiance of day, they present them- 
selves to observation in their just proportions and 
right nature ; so, when the sun of righteousness 
makes daylight in the soul, the judgments which 
t makes of what is offered to it are clear and 

* Rowe. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 85 

correct. It sees into the true nature of things, 
and into the real character of all temptations ; 
and does not mistake evil for good, or bitter for 
sweet. But, as under the light of the moon, even 
at its fullest splendour, there is but a cold and 
shadowy presentation of objects, which often gives 
them fanciful and distorted forms, very different 
to their real nature, — so, when the light of reason 
is the only illumination which governs the mind, 
its views of things are necessarily obscure, and its 
conclusions variable and unsatisfactory. Reason, 
enlightened by the spirit of Truth, shining in the 
conscience, is an ordained and inestimable faculty, 
and a precious servant of the soul ; but Reason, 
setting up for herself, and acting only by her own 
light, is as variable, as cold, and as un fructifying 
in her operations as the moon, which gives neither 
warmth nor life to anything. 

I can understand nothing of what I see in human 
beings, but by considering them as to the greater 
part, to be walking in the moonlight of their 
reason, a light which, as it respects some of them, 
is always a mere crescent, scarcely affording a ray 
of illumination, and never advancing beyond the 



86 The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 

poor light that guides their groping and giovflling 
life of sensuality. 

In cases where education, and taste, and favour- 
able influences have acted to elevate the nature, 
there is a dwelling under an effulgence of light, 
like that of the moon at the full, and people thus 
enlightened will write and talk with impressive 
appeals to the understanding, but not to the con- 
science — not to the heart and the affections, for 
the light by which they walk is insufficient to act 
upon these. They must be fructified, as the fruits 
of the earth are fructified, by the genial light and 
life of the Great Source of all things. 



CHAPTER XII. 

" 1V 7 "EEP your mind active," was the advice of 
Niebuhr to a young friend, as I read in 
a book that lately came into my hands, and which 
was entitled, " Reminiscences ; ' of him. 

" This is just what I ought to do," I said to my- 
self on reading this. " But what object have I in 
view on which my mind could spend its activity ?" 

It was but the momentary querulousness of 
nature that put so childish a query. A better 
counsellor promptly repelled it with suggesting 
that at my age there was but one object which 
reason, as well as religion, pointed out as that 
which ought to engage my attention, and exercise 
my faculties. 

" It does do so/' I replied. I think I may safely 
say there is not an hour in my waking life in 
which the thought of death is not present with 



88 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

me ; yet, whilst my mental powers are still spared 
to me, I cannot but sometimes wish to exercise 
them in things pertaining to this mortal life to 
which I yet belong. It may be vanity. A great 
deal of it, no doubt, is so. But let it be what it 
may, I possess, or I fancy that I do, a gift of just 
thought and feeling ; a sense of goodness and 
of beauty that yearns to diffuse itself somewhere, 
and in some way. To do anything, in short, 
rather than vegetate in this state of profitless 
inanition. 

These are not new thoughts by any means ; 
neither is the answer to them otherwise than 
familiar, and as forcible as it is familiar to me. It 
came, as it is wont to do, as I reclined upon my 
pillow. In the calm stillness of that silent hour, 
it was in this wise that the inner voice, or, as 
Adam Smith, in his " Theory of Moral Senti- 
ments," expresses it, " the man within the breast" 
addressed me. 

It is true that you have a measure of the divine 
gift which you describe as a sense of goodness and 
beauty that yearns to diffuse itself; but this you 
have only in common with others ; for it is a 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 89 

portion of " the true light that lighteth every one 
that cometh into the world." God has been 
gracious in granting to you, in addition to this 
gift, a perception and love of its infinite worth, 
which is a sentiment of such great value in His 
sight, that He guards it with peculiar care. In 
the dispensations of His providence His language 
seems to be — " I the Lord do keep it ; I will water 
it every moment : lest any hurt it, I will keep it 
night and day/'* And how does he do that ? 
How has He done it for you in your life of nearly 
fourscore years ? Has it been by leaving it at 
your disposal, to scatter and squander in the ser- 
vice of self-love, and as means of feeding the 
devouring appetite of your soul for this world's 
fame and profits ? Did He suffer you long to be 
this " empty vine, bringing forth fruit unto your- 
self," f in your novels and your musical exhibi- 
tions, and all the devices whereby the natural 
heart, without speech or language, intelligibly pro- 
claims, " I am, and none else beside me," (Isaiah, 
xlvii. 8.) No, — and for ever NO. It is not thus 
that the wisdom of God permits the least portion 

* Isaiah xxvii. 3. f Hosea x. 1. 



90 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

of that which perceives, and loves, and desires to 
be united with what is of His own nature, to be 
trampled under foot by the wild boar of self-hood. 
Gifts of talent and mental powers are valuable 
endowments ; but to what vile uses they may be 
appropriated, if we had no other name than that 
of Byron to inform us, it might suffice. But we 
have a multiplicity of such sad and shameful illus- 
trations of desecrated abilities. Yet not many of 
misused conscientiousness, for God himself is on 
the side of the human being who recognises Him ; 
and who, though fearfully and furiously assaulted 
with snares and temptations, as it is certain such 
a one would be from the world, the flesh, and the 
devil, yet arms himself with faith to fight the good 
fight, and aims to say with Job, "though he slay 
me, yet will I trust in Him." 

And there is great need for this earnest and 
constant trust, whilst the process of purification is 
going on, and that solemn word is being realised 
which says, "From all your filthiness, and from 
all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart 
also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 91 

within you." * Nor must the sorely-exercised soul 
despond, if many relapses into the old " bondage 
to corruption" impede its progress to life,, and 
light, and liberty. It has been your own case 
again and again ; but again and again the snare 
was broken, and you have been delivered ; and 
always in the same way ; for there is but one 
way, and that a way of suffering, in which " a 
new heart and a new spirit " take the place of 
the old, unregenerate nature. " Before I was 
afflicted, I went astray," says David ; and so also 
says every saint of God. 

What need have you, then, to be talking of an 
object on which to spend your activity of mind ? 
Your chief object ought to be to subdue it at 
every turn, and thus to follow in the track which 
the Providence of God so manifestly opens up as 
the path in which you are to travel through the 
solitary wilderness in which alone it is His good 
pleasure to meet with you. 

* Ezekiel xxxvi. 25, 26. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

r j ^HAT my lot of seclusion and solitude is an 
especial appointment of the Divine will, 
I have more than the indication of circumstances 
for believing. If I were to say that more than 
five and forty years ago, it was distinctly fore- 
told to me, — not by any gipsy fortune-teller, but 
by a devoted servant of God, occupying the sta- 
tion of a minister of the gospel, — I should, no 
doubt, be laughed at as a fanatic or a fool. It 
seems strange, that whilst any kind and degree 
of attention, and even of faith, will be given 
to the contemptible exhibition of table-turning, 
spirit-rapping, and such like mummery, scarcely 
anything but contempt is awakened by the 
slightest expression of belief in the agency of 
God's Spirit, as directing and influencing the 
soul in any unusual and remarkable manner. A 



The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 93 

particular dream may perhaps be related and 
listened to with something like reverence ; for 
to dreams almost everybody agrees in attributing 
something that is occasionally significant of super- 
natural influence. 

But a prophecy ! As if there were such a 
being now to be found as a prophet ! That is 
too ridiculous, — too fanatical, — and so on, through 
all the changes wherewith the arrogant contempt 
of ignorant infidelity laughs to scorn the simple, 
humble confidence of the believer in what is 
spiritual and invisible. 

Be it so. I feel, nevertheless, an impulse which 
I will not resist, to give a place in these pages 
to a passage in my life which I have never re- 
garded in any other light than as being signally 
marked as a prophecy. To make it intelligible, 
I must go into some of the details that attended 
it. Of these, the most prominent were, the death 
of my parents, my having to seek a new home, 
and my being located at the house of a widow 
lady at Cambridge, who was a highly evangelical 
professor. By her instrumentality I became known 
to Mr Simeon, and the elite of the religious world 



94 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

of the place ; and extremely kind many of them 
were in inviting me to their houses, and extending 
to me the hand of help, which it seemed to the 
most sincere and thoughtful of them that my con- 
dition most especially needed. 

As far as a position particularly exposed to the 
most fascinating, but at the same time the most 
fallacious of earthly enjoyments was concerned, 
few persons could be more perilously circum- 
stanced than at that time I was. The attraction 
of youth had departed, but at three and thirty, 
which was my age, there was not much to fear 
on the score of being too passee to be thought 
of as personally attractive. I may venture to say 
that on this ground I had still my admirers, and 
had I been so disposed, might have been married. 
But, for more than a dozen years previous to this 
period, I had suffered my affections to fix upon 
an individual, who might have lived in the moon 
for any chance I had of his responding to my 
attachment. No matter ; he was my dear and 
intimate friend ; — he was something to love and 
to look to, in the dreary desert of the peculiarly 
unhappy home wherein my early lot was cast ; 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 95 

and blessed was the dispensation which made this 
wild vagary of fancy a protection from the rash 
step, which my domestic misery would have been 
only too likely to have prompted me to take, of 
an imprudent marriage. There was no marriage 
wanted or wished for by me, whilst I had the 
friendship and fatherly affection (for he was old 
enough to be my father) of this beloved one. 

Did he know that I loved him ? you are de- 
sirous, I dare say, of being informed. Certainly 
not from any lapse of feminine prudence or deli 
cacy on my part, nor yet from any impulsive 
betrayal of tender feeling. On the contrary, I 
think that the general tone of my behaviour to 
this individual, was indicative more of dissatisfac- 
tion, and a disposition to quarrel, than of passionate 
attachment. But is not this the characteristic of 
feelings of this nature, in minds where the ele- 
ments of the inferior life are met with the judg- 
ment and the rebuke of the superior part ? Sharp 
and constant, you may believe me, was the con- 
demnation which my understanding passed upon 
the mistake I had made in allowing my affections 
to fix so hopelessly and so foolishly. Could I 



96 Tht Solace of a Solitaire : 

not reason them out of their delusion ? Could I 
not set before them, with a strength of common 
sense unanswerable in the weight of its arguments, 
the damage to self-respect — the insane injury to 
peace of mind — which the indulgence of so pre- 
posterous a prepossession produced ? Undoubt- 
edly, I could, and I would — and I did. I wrote 
letters to myself full of such excellent counsel, 
that the wonder of wonders was, how it came to 
be wanted. But in vain ! Feeling triumphed over 
reason, and held me its slave and victim. Still, 
as I have said, it was a wise and merciful dis- 
pensation which, by keeping me unhappy, kept 
me prayerful ; and by disappointing my affections 
as to an earthly object, prepared them to fix 
where they would meet with no blight, and no- 
thing but joy. 

But it is time that I should return from a 
digression so wide of the point, and into which 
I have so strangely wandered. It bears, how- 
ever, upon the aspect of my state at the time to 
which I refer — a state which was one of the in- 
fluences of my life, and which in no small measure 
opened my mind to the reception of religious in- 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 97 

struction and consolation. I had been at a tea- 
drinking at the house of a religious family the 
preceding evening, when I, one morning, received 
a call from a gentleman who had been of the 
party, and who was at that time on a visit to a 
family in the place. He was a person of note in 
the religious world, as some persons yet living 
would remember, when I state that he was the 
Rev. John Simons of Paul's Cray, in Kent He 
was a sincerely good man ; but eccentric and 
blunt in his mode of speech to an extraordinary 
degree ; insomuch, that I well remember on the 
occasion of his visit at this particular time to 
Cambridge, when some one asked Mr Simeon if 
Mr Simons would not preach at his church the 
following Sunday, his replying in the negative. 
" I love and respect dear Mr Simons," he said, 
" but I dare not put him into my pulpit." 

As the party at which I had met him the 
evening before had been too large, and his con- 
versation too general, to admit of my having any 
particular discourse with him, he paid me this 
morning call for more directly personal communi- 
cation on the subject of religion. It happened 



98 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

that, when he entered the room, I had a large 
volume of D'Oyley & Mant's edition of the Bible 
open on the table, and at a part which was illus- 
trated by a picture. This at once caught his eye, 
and he had scarcely seated himself before he 
broke out with a denunciation upon " a pictorial 
Bible." 

" Even the Word of God," he said, " must be 
made pleasant to the eye, to coax the natural 
man into reading it." 

I assured him this was not the case with me, 
for I only used this illustrated Bible because I 
possessed it in the way of inheritance ; it having 
belonged to my father. 

He said no more on that head, but proceeded to 
explain that the cause of his visiting me was an in- 
terest he felt in the statement he had received 
from a well-wisher of mine as to my particular 
case. It was one, he said, which he could well un- 
derstand to be fraught with extreme danger. 
The notice, and as he was pleased to phrase it, the 
admiration which my talents procured me, being 
only so many snares which the devil made use of 
to draw away my heart from God. 






A Record of Facts and Feelings. 99 

" I hoped not," I said ; and endeavoured to set 
before . him that I thought I might, by the exer- 
cise of the gifts of God in a proper direction, do 
service to Him, instead of being drawn away from 
Him. He denied the possibility of this whilst I 
used my gifts in the glorification of myself. " I 
hoped I did not do this," I said ; but the con- 
sciousness of the intense vanity which was rife 
within me, checked the further repudiation of his 
remark. 

" I might hope," he said ; " but that would do 
nothing. There was only one thing to be done, if 
I really wished to belong to God." " I was quite 
sure that I wished for this," I said. " Then you 
must make a clean deliverance for yourself," he 
replied, " by coming out, and being separate from 
the worldly society which you now frequent, and 
the incense of flattery with which it feeds you." 

" I confess I am not prepared," I said, a to make 
such a sweeping, and, as it appears to me, such a 
needless sacrifice." 

11 No matter/' he replied ; " prepared or not, if 
you are to belong to God, you must surrender all 
your gifts into His hands." He was proceeding to 



ioo The Solace of a Solitaire: 

point out the utter poverty of mental power and 
accomplishment to which I must submit to de- 
scend, but suddenly checking himself — " However, 
I will say no more/' he said; "this blessed book 
shall speak for me/' and turning to the Bible, he 
opened it at the prophecy of Hosea, and pointing 
to the second chapter, " There," said he, " is your 
history. There is your present condition, in which 
the language of your heart, if not of your tongue, 
is : 'I will go after my lovers, that give me my 
bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine 
oil and my drink.' This is your determination ; 
but what says the purpose and will of God to all 
this?" 

" Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way 
with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not 
find her paths. And she shall follow after her 
lovers, and shall not overtake them ; and she shall 
seek them, and shall not find them ; then shall she 
say, I will go and return to my first husband, for 
then was it better with me than now.' 3 

" And now," he said, " I will leave you to read 
and meditate upon this chapter, which I confi- 
dently point you to, as what has been, and 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 101 

what will continue to be, your experience in the 
ways of Providence." 

As soon as he departed, I sat down to the per- 
usal of the chapter to which he had referred. 
With every disposition to profit by it, I was, as 
yet, far too much enslaved by the enchantments 
of my position, to apply its language to any per- 
sonal benefit. In fact, I was not sufficiently 
acquainted with the mystical mode of the teach- 
ing of the Old Testament, to understand the sym- 
bolic form in which this prophecy was delivered. 
It was in after years, when my religious experi- 
ence had been deepened by accumulated sorrows, 
that I was enabled to discern, and that with a 
force of conviction that nothing could shake, that 
by the hands of John Simons I was favoured to be 
directed to a prophecy, which the events of five 
and forty years of my life have signally and 
blessedly fulfilled ; — events the most adverse that 
could be conceived to my will and wishes, and to 
the circumstances which then surrounded me ! 
For how could I then have supposed — how could 
I have endured to suppose — that a solitary and a 
desert wilderness life, as mine has been for the 



102 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

last five and thirty years, could not only have 
been endurable to me, but, recognised and 
accepted as a precious token of Divine love and 
favour ? How could I have conceived the possi- 
bility that it was through the overturning and 
grinding to powder of all that I most prized, 
and through the fulfilment of the solemn words, 
" I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein 
she burned incense to them, and she decked her- 
self with her ear-rings and her jewels, and she went 
after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord," — 
that I was to be brought to rest and peace, and 
the love of God ? 

None can suppose such destruction of the best 
gifts of Nature to be needed in the passage of the 
soul from earth to heaven, but those who know — 
as I, even in that day of ignorant self-worship, had 
a dim perception of— that these endowments are 
hindrances instead of helps, to the possession of 
truth and peace ; inasmuch as, by leading the soul 
to seek its satisfaction in self-hood, they feed that 
insatiable hunger and covetousness of the carnal 
mind, which is " enmity towards God." And what 
is — what, necessarily, must be — the state of the 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 103 

creature that is at enmity with its Creator ? 
What is it f Does not every newspaper of every 
day depict it in the crime, the wretchedness, the 
distracted ways and means of seeking after enjoy- 
ment, — and finding nothing but misery, — in the 
frequent rushing upon self-murder of which they 
tell ? Truly indeed has the wise man epitomised 
the common history of Godless humanity, when 
he says, " Madness is in their heart while they live, 
and after that they go to the dead." * 

But God is gracious ; — and in His great mercy 
uses the very things that Nature says, with one of 
old, " They are all against me," — as the means of 
benefit and blessing. Only let there be a disposi- 
tion to turn to Him in the time of trial, — only let 
** the sighing of the contrite heart " go forth in the 
cry of Hezekiah, " O Lord, I am oppressed, under- 
take for me," and the answer of peace will come, 
as it came to me, when the visitation of chastise- 
ment for {< the days of Baalim " was ended. 

Then the precious promise was realised which 
says, " Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into 
the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." 

* Ecclesiastes ix. 3. 



104 The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 

" And I will betroth thee unto me for ever ; yea, 
I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and 
in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mer- 
cies ; I will even betroth thee unto me in faithful- 
ness, and thou shalt know the Lord." 

Even so ! — I do know Thee, my Lord, and my 
God ! — I do know Thee as the Saviour and Re- 
deemer of my helpless soul. I do know Thee 
through the ever-living, ever-present, ever-speak- 
ing instruction of Thine own Spirit ! And oh, 
how different is this knowledge from that which is 
gathered from the muddy conceivings of human 
commentaries on the " letter that killeth " — human 
notions— human cries of " I am of Paul, and I 
of Apollos." Enough for me is it that I am the 
Lord's, " chosen in the furnace of affliction," — 
allured into the wilderness, there to know the 
meaning of those divine words, "Thy Maker is 
thy husband ; the Lord of hosts is His name." * 

* Isaiah liv. 5. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PERCEIVE that in the preceding chapter I 
have unconsciously wandered into the auto- 
biographical details which, in the very first pages 
of this record, I so firmly renounced having any- 
thing to do with. But I find, in my peculiar cir- 
cumstances of age and solitude, that in writing as 
I should think it proper only to write, with a view 
to render my personal experience useful to other 
minds, it is scarcely possible to avoid an attempt 
at illustrating that experience with an occasional 
reference to certain passages in my past history. 

Having done so, I wish to obviate the prob- 
able mistake which might be made, of concluding 
that the injudicious, and consequently unhappy 
attachment of which I have just made mention, 
presented the precise trial by which I was brought 
into the wilderness, to " acquaint myself with God, 



106 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

and be at peace " — by saying that this was not the 
case. That particular mistake of my life, though 
of long duration, subsided, or, I should rather say, 
gave place to another, far more fatal to my happi- 
ness in succeeding years. In that to which I have 
referred, there was no ground for the discomfort it 
produced, but the wandering of fancy and feeling* 
which I scarcely believe would ever have occurred, 
but for the perpetual blight upon my domestic 
happiness which untoward circumstances occa- 
sioned, and which drove me to let out the 
stream of my strong affections upon any one 
that took a more than common interest in me. 
When these unfavourable circumstances were re- 
moved, and I came under more genial and expan- 
sive influences, the link which, for so long a time, 
had bound me to a passion which my understand- 
ing always recognised as preposterous, gradually 
loosened, and when I found myself the object of 
an avowed and ardent attachment to another per- 
son, I may say that it was wholly broken. 

Of this latter passage in my history I shall say 
no more, than that it was one which brought upon 
me more of misery than any other in my life. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 107 

The person who professed to love me is now no 
more; and I wish to say as little as possible in 
alluding to him. He made a mistake in the mat- 
ter as well as myself. He fancied that in loving 
me, he loved a woman whose mental power would 
ride out all the storms of human life, with triumphant 
conquest — a woman who, placed by his side, would 
prove a powerful aid-de-camp in fighting with him 
for all that the world had to bestow of its best in 
fame, and wealth, and personal distinction. A 
denizen and disciple of earth himself, he looked 
for the like in his helpmeet ; but he found it not 
in me. He found little else than a mind enervated 
by self-indulgence — enslaved by feeling — petulant 
with natural irritability — captious and exacting,- — 
in a word, a woman with a measure of morbid 
sensibility, which neutralised her gifts of talent 
and understanding, by usurping the place of the 
female dignity, and the self-command, which is 
in the highest degree necessary on the part of 
the woman who wishes to retain her proper place 
in the respect of the man who professes to love 
her. This was his mistake, and a great one ; but 
it was light in the balance compared with mine ; — 



108 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

as was the distress which it entailed upon him. 
Not that I would estimate this as by any means 
insignificant ; for, although a devoted servant of 
the world, he was a conscientious man ; and, how- 
ever incapable of sacrificing the prospects and 
purposes of the most gigantic ambition that ever 
actuated the mind of man, to a sense of tenderness 
and compassion that pitied and overlooked the 
faults by which I teased and troubled him, he 
could not, without a measure of remorse that I 
fully believe preyed upon his health to the short- 
ening of his life, hear, as he no doubt must have 
heard, (for it was only by hearsay he knew any- 
thing about me, after I had, in a fit of indignation, 
dismissed him from my acquaintance,) he could 
not, I am sure, have heard of me as suffering in 
health, a bankrupt in happiness, and, through a 
series of strange melancholy circumstances, be- 
reaved of the companionship of a female friend 
who resided with me — left alone to bear or battle 
with my afflictions, — he could not, I am fully per- 
suaded, have known this, without shrinking from 
"the still small voice," which would not fail to 
suggest how large a part of my trial was due to 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 109 

his hard, ungenerous conduct. I have reason to 
believe that it did not fail to do so ; and that his 
dying in an unmarried state was a testimony of 
his remorse and repentance. In touching on what 
had so long and strong an influence on my life, an 
influence which, in the solitude and seclusion to 
which it led, abides to this day, it seemed neces- 
sary, in order to be understood, that I should 
expatiate a little upon it. 

As it respects myself, I could write a volume ; 
but it would be as vapid and uninteresting a one 
to other minds, as it would be profitless to my own. 
It may suffice to say, that this affair imparted a 
lesson which, I may venture to believe, has never 
lost its influence ; — a lesson which, by showing me 
my slavery to the bondage and delusion of the 
emotional side of my nature, revealed also the 
inflexible necessity, in order for my emancipation 
from it, that (as dear Isaac Pennington expresses 
it) I should " die exceedingly, inwardly, and 
deeply, again and again ;" and thus has it been the 
means of solemnising and strengthening this capa- 
city for discerning and loving divine truth, which 
the compensating wisdom of God bestowed upon 



1 10 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

me, as a balance to poise and preserve my soul, 
in the extreme danger by which it was threatened 
of becoming the victim of its own vehemence of 
passion. 

That this lesson can only be properly learned, 
and practically applied, by the most rigid retire- 
ment from the world, and a retreat into the in- 
terior depths of the heart, there to keep watch 
and ward over all its motions, and promptly to 
arrest and resist those which the wise monitor 
disapproves of, — I am well assured to be an in- 
dubitable truth, — in so far, at least as it respects 
myself, with whom there is so much to «/zlearn as 
well as to learn. In the case of others, it is not 
for me to judge ; but, as my old friend used to 
say, " we do not slide upon our backs into 
heaven ; -' and as a wiser person than she was, has 
told us, we may rest assured that when we 
earnestly pray to God for a heart and power to 
believe in, and belong to Him, it is " by terrible 
things that He will answer us," (Psalm lxv. 5.) 
Be it so. Strength to endure will assuredly come 
with the needful trial; and the storm passed 
away, the " heaviness that endureth for a night 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 1 1 

will be succeeded by the joy that cometh in the 
morning ; " and the purified soul, mounting up- 
wards with a song, will be enabled to say, 
" Blessed, O Lord, are those whom thou choosest, 
and causest to approach unto Thee : they shall 
be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house." * 

* Psalm Ixv. 4. 



CHAPTER XV. 

T T is the opinion of many persons that religion 
is too sacred a theme to be prominently 
brought forward when discussing the common 
course of familiar and what may be termed every- 
day life. And certainly it would be to desecrate 
this solemn theme to drag it in, as some persons 
do, at every turn, as something which it is their 
duty, or rather, as they mostly phrase it, their 
" privilege," as religious professors, to propose 
and propound to whoever comes in their way. I 
should be sorry that any one should make the 
mistake of classing me with this company ; for 
the greater part of whom, in so far as my ac- 
quaintance with them extends, (and at one time 
of my life it might be said to be large,) I have the 
utmost distaste — having usually found that, just 
in proportion as they were ignorant of, and op- 



The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 113 

posed to, the spirituality of true religion, which 
purifies the heart and keeps the conscience a faith- 
ful witness for God ; — they were skilful in build- 
ing themselves up in the doctrines and notions 
they had picked out of the letter; which, when 
taken as the primary rule, may truly be charac- 
terised as that " which killeth." 

It is well said that "where the Spirit of the 
Lord is, there is liberty." There, the renewed 
and sincere soul feels the presence of that divine 
truth which makes it free from the bondage of 
dead words, and causes " the Amen, the faithful 
and true witness," which is its interior well-known 
and well-beloved companion, to respond with joy 
to the voice of its Creator. But is there anything 
like this in that which the generality of religious 
books and of religious talk sets before a soul that 
hungers for " the bread of life ? " 

I fear not. I fear that in too many, and what 

if I say, that in most instances, the request and 

yearning for bread is answered by the gift of a 

stone. I do not know anything that acts upon 

my spirit with the hard, stony, repulsive effect 

that the dialect of some very high doctrinal teach- 

H 



ii4 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

ing and talking does. When it overtakes me in 
a book, I can pass it over ; and when it comes to 
me in a letter, I can put it in the fire, which I do 
with all speed ; but when it meets me face to face 
in a talker, and I cannot, in common civility, tell 
him to hold his tongue, nor yet run straight out of 
the room, I cannot describe the benumbing feeling 
which it leaves upon my mind, except by saying 
that I seem for the moment to be transformed 
into a lump of marble. Practising such strict 
abstinence, as I do, from the shibboleth in use 
with these sectarians, it is to be concluded that 
I am suspected by many, and shunned by some 
of them, as being what they call " unsound" in 
my religious views. 

It is quite curious to observe the uniformity of 
demand amongst this class of religionists (who 
are, one and all, the devout adherents of what 
Coleridge calls " bibliolatry ") for a particular 
mode of expression on the subject of religion ; 
and, whether you feel it to be so or not, a distinct 
reference to certain prescribed phrases that are 
supposed to comprehend the marrow of all ortho- 
dox divinity. It is not enough that, to avoid a 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 1 5 

wrangle, under the name and notion of a pious 
discussion, you carefully eschew in your discourse 
by word or pen, any mention of the topics on 
which they are so fluent. Your very silence on 
that score is an offence ; and they will not accept 
of a word you do utter, though it be of a kind to 
which their own consciences bear witness as an 
everlasting truth. It has not the right doctrinal 
stamp upon it, they say ; there is no mention 
made of this article of Christian faith; no allu- 
sion to another ; and, consequently, something to 
be suspected and kept at a distance, in all you 
produce. I had a striking instance of this odious 
bigotry very lately, in respect to a tract which I 
offered to a publisher who deals largely in these 
small theological wares, and who had accepted and 
published several of the sort, which I had (of 
course gratuitously) offered to him. 

After considerable delay in replying to my 
communication, he wrote me word that he had 
showed the tract to a friend, who said it was all 
very well as far as it went, but that there was a 
great want in it of specific allusion to the leading 
doctrines of Christianity ; and upon this want his 



1 1 6 The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 

friend had descanted in a way which made it 
desirable that I should read his letter, which he 
would accordingly transmit to me. To prevent 
his bringing this bother upon me, I instantly 
replied that I would not wish him to take the 
trouble of forwarding the epistle to which he 
alluded, as I had no doubt that, without reading 
a word of it, I could render the contents of it 
verbatim. I only requested the return of my 
own manuscript, which of course I received by 
the next post ; and there it ended. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

"T7 0R some time past, the Daily Telegraph, 
which is the paper I take, has been greatly 
occupied with the letters of its different corre- 
spondents on the vexed question of " Marriage or 
Celibacy." 

Few things seem to me more striking than the 
extremely low ground on which that momentous 
subject is contemplated. " Marriage or Celibacy," 
as there discussed, appears to be regarded as a 
speculation, to be settled, like all commercial ques- 
tions, upon its relations with £ s. d. Unquestion- 
ably, it is but prudent and proper to consider 
whether there are sufficient funds for the wedding 
side of the subject ; but surely this, though a very 
important point, is not the most so, in contem- 
plating it. That has to be sought in the spiritual 
aspect which it wears, and as of infinitely more 



1 1 8 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

importance than the cash question. The first in- 
quiry which the candidate for matrimony would be 
wise to make, would be into the nature of the 
mind and temper of the individual with whom 
such an intimate, and, except by death or mis- 
conduct, such an indissoluble connexion was 
sought. To have descanted on this side of the 
question would, perhaps, have brought out opin- 
ions full of the good sense which often lies latent 
in the minds of human beings, and of which they 
themselves do not know that they are possessed, 
simply from the want of the suggestive thoughts 
which collision with other minds produces. For 
the action of mind upon mind (supposing, of 
course, that there is any mind to be acted upon) 
is much like that of friction applied to flint — a 
concussion is given by the word of the strong, bold 
thinker, which elicits a spark that was dormant 
in another mind. But no such concussion was 
effected, or attempted, in the views propounded 
by the correspondents of the Daily Telegraph on 
this subject. The epistles with which it was 
filled, ran in the same cuckoo strain of " How 
much is needed to marry upon ; and what shall 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 119 

we do, and where shall we live when we are 
married," — and the like commonplace, mercantile 
twaddle, and that by the week together ; — so that 
I took up the paper with something of a cold 
shiver, and caught the words, " Marriage or Celi- 
bacy," with much the same sensation with which I 
should have looked at a dose of salts and senna. 
Of course, the writers of these epistles, and pro- 
bably many other people, would account for this 
recoil on my part by saying that it was only the 
splenetic feeling of an aged spinster that caused 
my dissatisfaction with a theme in which, for many 
a long year, I could have had no personal interest ; 
and certainly, as it regards the spleen by which I 
might be supposed to be actuated in approaching 
that particular subject, I will not say that I can, 
conscientiously, entirely repudiate it. With Mrs 
Malaprop, I believe, " I must own the soft im- 
peachment," in so far at least, as confessing that 
love and marriage are themes which I do regard 
with a shade more of bitterness than of benevo- 
lence. 

After what I have stated in these pages re- 
specting my experience in love-matters, it will be 



120 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

concluded that it is on the ground of personal dis- 
appointment that I thus express myself. Possibly 
I may, on this account, be disposed to regard with 
a degree of gloom what has been to me, as I am 
inclined to believe that, under one modification or 
another, it is to most women, a source of greater 
sorrow than any other of their trials. It is only to 
be expected that the anguish which accompanies 
a wound upon the affections, and which is ex- 
perienced in its greatest poignancy when inflicted 
on a woman, should infuse a portion of wormwood 
in her reflections on the subjects of love and mar- 
riage. Men may, and doubtless often do, experi- 
ence a stroke upon their feelings from disap- 
pointed affections, and one which they suffer from 
severely. But it is seldom, if ever, that it pene- 
trates so deeply, and lasts so long, as when it 
pierces the heart of woman. For, besides, that as 
men, they have generally a variety of engrossing 
occupations which prevent their indulging that 
tendency to brood over painful thoughts which is 
so rife in women ; they are by nature far stronger 
in the power of self-control, and more supported 
by disdain of becoming the slaves and victims of 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 121 

their feelings, than women are. With these last, it 
is a point and purpose to be interesting and at- 
tractive ; as a means to which, of course, they must 
be careful to cultivate that sweet sensibility which 

" Turns at the touch of joy or woe, 
And turning, trembles too," 

But to a man, with what a droll old woman I used 
occasionally to talk with, called " a ha'porth of 
brains," all this trembling and turning at the touch 
of joy or woe, is just so much nonsense, which he 
begs to dispense with as fast as he can. I am in- 
clined to think that a sensible woman also, when 
time, and better things than time, have subdued 
the romance of her ideas about love and matri- 
mony, regards as little else than folly, — and, in 
some instances, a species of folly that bordered 
upon insanity,— some of the preposterous mistakes 
she has made in her attachments. It is not with- 
out sufficient ground that Cupid is pourtrayed as 
blind ; nor yet that he is furnished with a bow 
and arrow to transfix, with a sudden wound, the 
human heart. I remember a ridiculous passage in 
my own life, now only regarded as something to 
afford matter for mirth, which actually, for a time, 



122 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

made me very unhappy, from the vagaries of hope 
and fear which accompanied it. The person who 
excited this agitation in my youthful heart, which 
then had not known fifteen years of existence, 
was a young nobleman passing through his two 
years of university career, and whom I happened 
to be placed near at a public concert. He had 
been a school-fellow of my brother's at Eton, and 
on the occasion of this concert he exchanged a 
nod of recognition with him, which same nod was 
the means of drawing my attention to him, 
and also, I suppose, of instigating Cupid to 
draw his bow, and send one of his arrows into 
my heart. 

His lordship was certainly, at that time, hand- 
some enough to realise the notion of a lover, and 
the propriety of my soon being supplied with one, 
which my studies in the line of novel reading had 
brought into some measure of activity ; and so, 
then and there, the first folly of first love began 
with me. It was of little or no consequence that 
not the slightest degree of acquaintance took place 
between us. He presented the hero I wanted, 
in order to make the drama of my life what it 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 123 

ought to be, by promoting me to the dignity of 
being in love, like the rest of the Hamsels with 
whose experiences in such matters, various vol- 
umes from the circulating library had made me so 
well acquainted, 'and that was enough. It will 
scarcely be believed that anything so vague and 
flimsy in its nature as an incident of this sort, 
should have had the power to cause me a mo- 
ment's pain. But it actually did do this, — 
from the scope which it gave to the exercise of 
fantastic visions, and illusive hopes, that in 
some way, and at some time, just as the heroes 
and heroines in novels met and married, and 
were ever happy after, — this young lord and 
I might meet, and marry, and enjoy perpetual 
felicity. 

To be sure, I was little more than a child when 
all this nonsense occurred ; but it was a sort of 
lesson out of the horn-book of a female heart, 
which made its impression, and that a useful one, 
for it taught me the fallacious character of all the 
feelings that agitate the human heart, when they 
take their source from the tricks and sorceries of 
the imagination. Well does the wise man say, 



1 24 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

" O wicked imagination, whence earnest thou in, 
to cover the earth with deceit ? " * 

As a commentary upon this love passage, I may 
mention that some thirty years after its occurrence, 
happening, when in London, to accompany a friend 
to a private exhibition of pictures at the house of a 
celebrated artist, I perceived amongst them a full- 
length portrait of this paragon of my girlish fancy. 
He was then advanced to the dignity of a duke, 
(I may as well say, in passing, that he has been 
dead more than twenty years,) and also that of a 
Knight of the Garter, and, decorated with the 
insignia of the order, he was looking, I suppose, as 
well as he knew how, and as the artist was able 
to make him look. But, as I scanned the pale, 
pinched features, and the totally insignificant pre- 
sentment that he made, apart from his robes and 
the rest of his paraphernalia, I asked myself if it 
could ever have been possible that such a popinjay 
as that could have caused me a moment's agita- 
tion ? 

"Yes," was the reply of "the man within the 
breast ; " " yes — but how ill able were you then to 

* Ecclesiasticus xxxvii. 3. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 125 

conceive, what time and experience have made 
facts as sure to you as that two and two make 
four, that nothing is too preposterous for the witch- 
craft of imagination to create, on the subject of 
that mysterious passion which mortals deify under 
the name of love. Be assured, that when the spell 
is broken, and the delusion has passed away, a 
countless number of women are ready to regard 
many of their past prepossessions as you now re- 
gard yours ; and are disposed to think, as you at 
this moment are, that this sort of infatuation is 
not greatly different from that by which Titania, 
in the ' Midsummer Night's Dream/ when under 
the influence of magic, falls in love, and takes for 
a divinity, Bottom the weaver, with the ass's head 
upon his shoulders." 

Strange beyond all the strangeness which en- 
compasses the mysteries amidst which "we live, 
and move, and have our being/' is the mistake, 
and the misery consequent on that mistake, which 
so frequently accompany the passion between 
the sexes. Regarded in the fierce hatred, even to 
loathing, with which, after a courtship that borders 
upon adoration, it often concludes ; — looking at 



126 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

the way in which this hatred manifests itself some- 
times, amongst the brutal beings in the lower 
orders, by blows, and wounds, and even murder, — 
and the not less earnest, though more quiet tokens 
of disgust, by which, in the display of neglect and 
contempt, it is testified in the higher walks of life ; 
— one would say that Jacob Behmen's view of this 
world, as the property of Satan, is likely to be a 
just one. 

At all events, in his spiritual power to magnet- 
ise, and bewilder, and bewitch the minds of human 
beings, added to the malignity which prompts him 
to draw them into a condition which the most 
effectually debases their affections, and separates 
them from the purity of God's Holy Spirit, — the 
use which the devil makes of this passion is no- 
thing less than marvellous, and such as, more than 
any other illustration of his influence, justifies the 
injunction of the apostle to Timothy, to preach 
and teach so as that those " may recover them- 
selves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken 
captive by him at his will." * 

It would seem as if this fallen spirit, — this 

* 2 Tim. ii. 26. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 127 

"ruler of the darkness of this world/' — having 
himself lost the divine life of Love, is led, by a 
thirst of revenge, to employ his power of travesty- 
ing and transforming what he finds of it in human 
nature, to suit the vile purposes of his demoniac 
wickedness, With this view of the case, I can 
only be thankful that my lot has been that of a 
Solitaire ; and, in the language of a certain poem, 
the author of which I do not know, but whose 
experience I readily make my own, I can sincerely 
say — 

" God of my life, how good, how wise, 
Thy judgments on my soul have been ; 

They were but blessings iu disguise, 
The painful remedies of sin. 

How different now Thy ways appear, 

Most merciful, when most severe. 

" Thou would' st not let the captive go 
Or leave me to my headstrong will, 

Thy love forbade my rest below, 
Thy patient love pursued me still ; 

And forced me from my sin to part, 

And tore the idol from my heart. 

" But can I now the loss lament, 

Or murmur at Thy friendly blow ; 
Thy friendly blow my heart hath rent 

From every seeming good below. 
Thrice happy loss which makes me see 
My all of happiness in Thee ! " 



128 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

With respect to the sum and substance of what 
the last few pages which I have just written, con- 
tain, I am quite prepared to find it condemned as 
significant of arrogance and ignorance, and what 
not of presumption, in my taking upon myself to 
speak so deprecatingly of a sentiment to which the 
common voice of humanity (though perhaps it will 
be admitted as speaking chiefly in poetry, and the 
literature most in circulation at Mr Mudie's) has 
attributed a celestial character. But such censure, 
a thousand times repeated, would never move me 
from a conviction that what I have said is founded 
on immutable truth ; for, whilst giving it utterance, 
I felt that I had with me the testimony of that 
internal Guide who conducts the soul "into all 
Truth," and whom I have taken for my master in 
all that I have learned of it. When this is the case, 
there is no questioning, — no taking human opinions 
as to the right or wrong of what we say, as Fdnelon 
observes — 

" Men may speak and discourse to us, in order 
to instruct us ; but we cannot believe them any 
farther than as we find a certain conformity or 
agreement between what they say, and what the 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 29 

inward master says. After they have exhausted 
all their arguments, we must still return and 
hearken to Him for a final decision. It is in 
the deepest depth of ourselves, by consulting 
that inward Master, that we must find the truths 
that are outwardly proposed to us. And 
thus, properly speaking, there is but one true 
Master who teaches all, and without whose 
instruction we learn nothing. It is in the 
depth of our own souls that He keeps in store 
for us certain truths which lie, as it were, 
buried, but which, upon occasion, revive." * And 
why should not all the seekers after Truth come 
under the teaching of this Divine Master ? Why 
should they not be able to say with David, " I 
have chosen the way of truth ; thy judgments 
have I laid before me," (Ps, cxix. 30.) Is not the 
reason for their preferring any kind of teacher to 
this one, because of the "judgments " which He lays 
before them ? and which are quick and powerful, 
and " sharper than any two-edged sword ; " and 
altogether as different from the surface-sliding, 

* Fenelon " On the Existence of God," section 59. 



1 30 The Solace oj a Solitaire, &c. 

wordy teachings, under which they feel as little 

in their pew at church, as the dead do in their 

graves on the outside of it — as light is from 
darkness. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

/ nr A HE wonderful impulsiveness of the Irish 
character, — its sudden rushing out into 
words, and thus letting off, and letting out, the 
immediate impression with which the mind seethes 
and effervesces, however wild and irrelevant to 
present circumstances that impression may be, — 
is so strikingly exhibited in the following incident, 
narrated in the " Life of Father Mathew," that I 
cannot refrain from giving it a place here. It 
relates to the experience of one Father Donovan 
as a jail chaplain, and of how men bore them- 
selves in the supreme moment of their fate : — 

" Though a good-natured man, his temper was 
not difficult to ruffle, and on one occasion it was 
tried rather curiously. A prisoner was sentenced 
to death on Friday, and was to be executed on 
the following Monday. Father Donovan was, as 
usual, most zealous in his attentions to the con- 



132 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

demned, and employed the best means to bring 
him to a suitable frame of mind. On Sunday the 
priest assured his friends, that 'that poor fellow up 
in the jail, was a most edifying penitent, whose 
thoughts were wholly fixed upon heaven/ The 
hour arrived at which the law was to take its 
course. The sad procession was slowly winding 
its way through one of the principal thoroughfares 
of the city, when the priest, who was absorbed in 
his pious efforts to complete his good work, was 
stunned by hearing the condemned man, who sat 
near him, cry out in a voice expressive of great 
amazement — ' Oh, be the holy powers ! that 's 
quare. Yea, Father Donovan, alanna, look there ! 
Look at that fine man up there ! But what is he 
doing there at all at all ? ' 

" The priest indignantly glanced at the cause of 
this ill-timed excitement, and he saw, over the 
shop-front of a well-known ironmonger, the — to 
him — familiar figure of Vulcan, which, cleverly 
carved in wood, and naturally coloured, stood 
nude and brawny, leaning in an attitude of repose, 
the hammer resting on the anvil. The figure was 
sufficiently life-like to deceive the unhappy culprit, 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 3 3 

whose dread of death was not powerful enough to 
repress every emotion of curiosity or surprise." * 

I can well believe that even the approach of 
death, would scarcely suffice to overpower the 
eagerness of an Irish mind to follow the impulse 
of the moment. 

It was amidst these impulses that I had my 
bringing up ; and it is to the influence which they 
exerted over me that I trace a very great part, if 
not the greatest, of my errors and my sorrows. 
That of hasty and imprudent speech, more par- 
ticularly, has occasioned me inexpressible torment; 
and well can I understand, and deeply can I sym- 
pathise with, the exclamation of one of old — 
"Who will set scourges over my thoughts, and 
the discipline of wisdom over mine heart ? " f 
"Who shall set a watch before my mouth, and 
a seal of wisdom upon my lips, that I fall not 
suddenly by them, and that my tongue destroy 
me not ? " % 

It is something of a comfort to me to find that 
other people share with me in this rashness of 

* " Life of Father Mathew," by Mr Maguire, p. 21. 
+ Ecclesiasticus xxxiii. 2. + Ibid. xxii. 27. 



134 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

speech ; for, when lately, after a visit from some 
individuals with whom I did not feel myself ex- 
actly on terms to be free and familiar, in speaking 
of it to a friend who soon after dropped in for an 
hour's chat, and saying that I had been upon the 
rack ever since my visitors departed, under a sense 
of having said things to them that I wished un- 
said, — and that I scarcely ever did come into the 
society of people with whom I had to behave my- 
self, without blundering upon something or another 
that it drove me half crazy to think of — my friend 
replied, that it was exactly her own case ; for that 
she more often than not, in looking back upon 
what she had said when in company, found cause 
to wish that she could unsay the greater part of it. 
These peccadilloes of speech are, however, but 
small matters to be troubled about, and probably 
such as are seldom observed, and certainly not 
cared for by any except the over-sensitive mind, 
which broods upon a troublesome thought till, 
gathering fresh force by every moment in which 
it is acting, it grows into a monster that beats and 
buffets us till we are ready to scream. I have 
learned to manage myself better than I was able to 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 135 

do in former times, under these strange assaults of 
fancy; and can, without much trouble, regain "the 
everrtenor of my way," if circumstances have, for 
a time, sent me out of it 

It is when the " scourge of the tongue " whips 
us with a consciousness of our folly, in suffering it 
to lead us into hasty, and, to the last degree, im- 
prudent disclosures, that we have cause to know 
what a fearful engine of mischief and misery it 
may become ; and that we can testify upon our 
own wretched experience that it is, as the apostle 
James describes it, "a fire, a world of iniquity;" — 
that it " setteth on fire the course of nature ; and 
it is set on fire of hell" * 

There is a particular passage in my life so strik- 
ingly illustrative of this propensity of the tongue 
to "set on fire the course of nature," (of my indi- 
vidual nature, at least,) that, although it will be a 
fresh violation of my original intention of avoid- 
ing autobiographical details, I think I cannot do 
better than relate it ; inasmuch as, besides the 
latent lesson which to sensitive and unguarded 
female minds it may. be fitted to impart, some- 

* Chap, iii, 6, 



136 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

thing in the shape of narration will serve to vary 
the monotony of didactic remark, with which these 
pages are filled. 

As the ramifications of the subject on which I 
am about to enter, are greatly mingled with its 
main purport, they require, like the dropped 
stitches in a piece of knitting, to be picked up, 
that the work may be proceeded with in an orderly 
way. I mast, therefore, gather together the ante- 
cedents of my tale into the introductory form, 
which will help to give it the intelligible character 
that is desirable. 

It would seem strange, for instance, that, from 
my earliest youth, I should have been thrown 
upon my own hands, — companionless, and unpro- 
tected, and untaught, — except in so far as the 
paternal roof afforded me shelter, and those who 
dwelt under it the necessaries of life ; and the 
common observances of domestic civilisation de- 
manded my compliance with the routine there 
established ; and which chiefly, in so far as I was 
concerned, only required my appearing in my 
proper place at proper times ; — yet, with these 
exceptions, I was left pretty much to myself, to 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 137 

make what I could of my case. It was not a 
favourable one for any child, and especially a 
child with such an exuberance of the old Adam 
in her nature as I had. My mother, who was 
past three and forty when I was born, and natur- 
ally disposed to love a quiet life if it were possible 
to be obtained, finding herself quite unable to 
manage me to advantage, was only too glad when 
my father sent me off to boarding-school, when I 
had got into my ninth year. Here, for the space 
of four years, I was brought into proper subjec- 
tion, and was doing so well, that my father, who 
was always impatient for results, and could never 
wait till the fruit was ripe that he wanted to 
gather, concluded that I had got all the educa- 
tional good that was needful, and that I might 
then come home to be useful and agreeable to 
my mother, who had sunk into poor health, 
and becoming more and more averse to com- 
pany, wished for somebody to amuse her at 
home. 

This was natural enough on her part ; but it 
was scarcely to be expected that a lively girl of 
thirteen would submit, with as much docility as 



138 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

was desirable, to the province of amusing her in 
the regular and unvarying way she hoped and 
anticipated. I could be amusing enough, and 
well-behaved, and submissive enough, when things 
went according to my mind. But, for the occa- 
sional outbreaks of temper and will, and what 
the servants used to call "master's making a 
noise," and " missus's " habit of sitting still by 
the fireside, I had nothing ready, and could by 
no possibility make these the things that were 
according to my mind. My domestic life was 
thus chequered with variations, in which the black 
squares greatly predominated over the white. I 
believe I could have made it out tolerably well, 
had I had only my mother to deal with ; for I 
was very fond of her; and, though headstrong 
in my will and way, yet accessible to a sense 
of duty, which made me, upon the whole, I hope 
and believe, a comfort to her. 

It was with the Irish violence of my poor father, 
that the chief of both my mother's and my own 
domestic discomfort originated. It is proper, 
however, that I should state, that neither, as it 
respected her nor myself, was our happiness im- 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 139 

paired by any immorality of conduct on his part. 
He was to her a faithful, and in his strange in- 
consistent way, also an affectionate husband ; as 
to my brother and myself, his only two surviving 
children, he might, in many important respects, 
be termed a kind and liberal father. His great 
hindrance to the orderly, consistent course of 
conduct, which would have made himself and 
his family as happy as most civilised families are, 
was the circumstance of his marrying, in my 
mother, a woman whose pecuniary means liberated 
him from the necessity of working at his medical 
profession for a livelihood, 

To be placed in a condition to do as they like, 
is a trying matter to everybody ; and more par- 
ticularly to an Irish body, whose national nature 
instinctively clutches at play, as vastly preferable 
to work. 

To facilitate his opportunities for taking plea- 
sure, my father entered into partnership with a 
person who was not unwilling to engage in the 
laborious part of the concern. In thus enlarging 
his means of enjoyment, he did not diverge into 
practices which were calculated to bring a shade 



140 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

of disgrace upon him. He had far too much pride, 
and, I may also say, too much principle, to enter 
into any low and debasing pursuits. A man with 
a nicer sense of what was right and respectable 
in behaviour, it would have been hard to find. 
Well do I remember once, when, as a child of 
some five or six years old, the servants, with 
whom I passed the chief of my time, not being 
just then able or inclined to amuse me, and the 
gate being open which gave an entrance out of 
the court-yard in which our house stood — I 
wandered into the street, and took a share in the 
pastime of hop-scotch which was going on there 
with the children of the neighbourhood, — well, I 
say, do I remember his coming upon me in his 
way home, and snatching me away from my 
associates, and his driving me before him into 
the parlour, where my mother was quietly seated 
with her novel. Even yet, I can remember the 
burst of indignation with which he replied to her 
question of, " What was the matter — and what was 
I crying about?" by saying that, "She might be 
ashamed of herself to allow me to be playing as 
he had just caught me, with all the blackguards 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 141 

in the street." Oh no ; it was not by demeaning 
himself by low pleasures that my poor father lost 
his way ; but rather by going in for what he 
reckoned as the recreations of a gentleman, in the 
amusements of card-playing of which he was 
intensely fond, and dinner-giving to members of 
the university, who, from their age and station 
in college, might have known better than to be 
always ready to partake of his venison and 
turtle, and drink his good wine, and win his 
money, and mislead him with a notion that they 
were his very good friends, when they were about 
his worst of foes. 

Having alluded to my brother, it will naturally 
be asked, if amongst the domestic surroundings 
which had a disquieting influence, I did not 
possess in him somewhat of a compensating 
character? Well, in a certain kind and degree, 
and for the very earliest part of my home life after 
I left school, he might be said to be a resource 
to me. But he was much too affluent in the 
exuberance of the Irish character, to be the safe 
and sober companion which my nature required ; 
and which the circumstance of his being eight 



142 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

years my senior, would have doubly enhanced in 
value. My father's great ambition had been to 
make his son a gentleman ; and having succeeded 
in getting him placed on the foundation at Eton, 
he had the supreme satisfaction of seeing him in 
due time a fellow of King's. Very soon, as com- 
monly happens in the case of excessive eagerness 
to encompass uncertain advantages, he discovered 
that if instead of making Sterling (as his name 
was) a gentleman, he had brought him up under 
a necessity of labouring at some employment, he 
would have rescued his son from the rock on 
which he himself had made shipwreck of all his 
opportunities ; even that of being able to follow 
the impulses of his self-will. Before my brother 
left Eton for college, these impulses had strength- 
ened into habits of indulgence to the lowest 
propensities of his nature, and which, but that 
they were balanced by a capacity for, and a 
considerable measure of cultivation in, refined 
pursuits of a mental kind, would, at that early 
stage of his career, have plunged him into the 
ruin which eventually befell him. But these for a 
time upheld him, and occasionally rendered his 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 143 

close connexion educationally useful to me. It 

was not always for instance, though far too often, 

that, in my father's kitchen, he would keep the 

two maid-servants and myself in a roar of 

laughter, by the relation of some ancedotes, often 

of a questionable character for propriety, though 

of none for amusement ; for he would vary these 

modes of dealing with me, by taking me out for 

a quiet walk, and repeating to me as we went 

along, some choice and beautiful piece of poetry ; 

his taste and judgment in which was remarkably 

good. Then again, he would now and then come 

in the evening, when my father was generally 

absent, and whose absence was always, unhappily, 

indispensable to the perfect freedom and comfort 

of his children, and read to my mother and me, 

whilst we sat at our work, some interesting book. 

.1 recollect with melancholy interest, his thus 

making me for the first time acquainted with 

many of Shakespeare's plays, and can, with " my 

mind's eye," see again the pleased expression of 

my dear mother's face, in contemplating her two 

wild and wayward children, thus sobered down 

to the calm and pleasant way of amusing them 



144 Th e Solace of a Solitaire : 

selves, which she herself enjoyed, and could join 
in, instead of the noisy mirth in which, like 
children, they sometimes played till they 
quarrelled. For, after the quick transit from 
one extreme to another, which seems to be a 
law in the Irish nature, the sympathy in fun 
and nonsense which I had with Sterling's talk, 
would subside into distaste, not to say disgust, 
when it diverged into a strain of impropriety ; 
and then his anger at my reproof sharply enough 
administered, and too true to be forgiven, would 
come out in words, made more bitter by the 
secret consciousness that he deserved the dis- 
pleasure I displayed ; and a fierce wrangle was 
the result. It was therefore a refreshment to us 
all, when we could fall upon an expedient for 
exercising and evolving those higher and better 
traits which were latent in our minds. Pleasantly 
would the hours thus pass away, till supper-time 
brought the foot-boy with tray and table-cloth, 
and we were reminded that our Parnassian diet 
had to be exchanged for something more material. 
None of us were in the least degree indifferent to 
the pleasures of the table ; so, when Sterling 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 145 

found on inquiry, that only cold meat was 
forthcoming, and had satisfied himself that my 
father was at his club, and not likely to be forth- 
coming at all, he would exclaim, "Then, by 
George ! we '11 have something nice and hot from 
the college kitchens. What do you say, ma'am," 
turning to my mother, "to a dish of Scotch 
collops ?" 

She replies that "nothing can be nicer," to 
which I entirely agree. 

" Now then, you sir," he would go on, addressing 
the boy, who during this debate had been stand- 
ing to await the result — " go to the college 
kitchen, and ask to speak to Mr Lawrence the 
cook, and tell him that I desire he will send it 
here — now mind you say here, at my father's 
house — not at my college rooms — do you under- 
stand ?" 

" Oh yes, sir, I understand ; but what, please, 
is he to send ?" 

"A dish of Scotch collops, you extraordinary 

calf. Didn't you hear me say, Scotch collops ? 

Let me here you say it." 

The boy then repeats as well as his grinning 

K 



146 The Solace of a Solitaire^ &c. 

from ear to ear will let him, the words, " Scotch 
collops," and is off. 

In as short a time as possible, the savoury 
viands appear, and we sit down to partake of 
them with great zest; not at all interrupted by 
the thought of the great probability that it will 
fall to my father's lot to pay for them, with the 
rest of the cook's bill, already, most likely, half as 
long as the table. 

Such as these, poor though they be in value, 
are about the pleasantest of my reminiscences of 
my brother. Of those of a painful kind, I need 
not speak ; and may close all that I have to say 
respecting him, by stating, that soon after this 
period, he left college, and took up his residence 
at some distance from Cambridge, where it was 
his fault, and, poor soul, his misfortune, to pass his 
time in habits of life which prepared the way to 
a wreck of constitution that closed his life at the 
age of five and forty. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

T T was during the fairy dream of my girlish 
fancy for the young nobleman of whom I 
have made mention, that these readings from 
Shakespeare occurred ; and thus, a certain kind 
of benefit resulted from that vision, in its preparing 
my mind to understand and sympathise with, the 
woes of Juliet and other of the great master's 
delineations of a love-sick heart. 

That vision had wholly passed away with a few 
more of my years ; and I had arrived at an age 
when less of ignorance and romance were likely to 
mingle with any attachment I might form. 

That I should form one of some kind or another, 
was inevitable ; not only because the youth of 
women of a much less impressionable temperament 
than mine, is, I believe, scarcely ever free from 
some prepossession ; but also because in the place 
where I resided, the opportunity and temptation 



148 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

for the indulgence of such influences is greatly 
augmented by the affluence of admirers which the 
university brings in the way of girls. 

It was to be expected, therefore, that something 
in the semblance of an attachment would engross 
my mind. 

But before I enter into a relation of it, I must 
go a little farther into the details which led to it. 

These relate chiefly to a connexion which I 
had formed with a young lady in the way of 
intimacy. I do not call it friendship ; for, inde- 
pendently of that particular sentiment not being 
one in which my sex can properly be said to 
shine, I never had any other feeling for Fanny 
Bird, (as I shall call her, *) but a sense of satis- 
faction in the resource she was to me as a 
walking companion, in the first part of my 
acquaintance with her ; and in her helping me to 
another associate whose society tended to make 
the walks I took in her company the principal 
happiness of my life. 

* For obvious reasons, I prefer to give fictitious names to the 
persons to whom I am about to allude ; though they have been 
many years deceased. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 149 

As my confidantes and especial friends, I 
possessed in the society of two sisters, Martha and 
Sarah Walton, those whom circumstances rendered 
of most particular value to me. Mr Walton their 
father, was a tradesman in the town ; and as such 
would have obtained no footing for himself or his 
family in the higher circles of the place, but for 
a talent in music which had been well cultivated ; 
and which in him, and in his two daughters and 
his youngest son, rendered their society sought at 
the private concerts, which, in my young days, 
were much in fashion with some leading members 
of the university. Mr Walton, who followed the 
business of a corn-merchant, was a tenant of my 
father's for some premises near our house, in which 
his mercantile affairs were carried on ; and as they 
were members of the same club, an acquaintance 
was formed between them, which, on the score of 
music, was soon extended to a great intimacy 
between me and his two daughters. 

It was not, however, so much on the ground of 
their musical acquirements that the society of 
these young women was so great a resource to me, 
as on that of the clever smartness of their minds, 



1 50 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

and the turn for fun and satire, which made them 
good company to those who, like myself, had great 
enjoyment in a hearty laugh. Whatever was the 
trouble at home, I had only to steal off to the 
house of the Waltons, which was very near my 
own, to merge and forget it there. Always I was 
sure of a welcome, and sure also of some of " the 
savoury meat which my soul loved," in little pleas- 
ant bits of flattery with which they were skilful in 
addressing me ; for my friendship was of import- 
ance in aiding them in the formation of some 
university acquaintance, as that, for instance, of 
Professor Smyth, and another gentleman of the 
professor's college, both of whom were in the habit 
of giving frequent and very pleasant musical 
parties. 

But without the stimulus of self-interest to warm 
their hearts towards me, I had reason to believe 
that both these girls were sincerely attached to 
me ; and I had neither wished nor wanted any 
other companions, but that in the matter of walk- 
ing out, they could be of little or no use to me, 
their dinner hour being soon after one o'clock — a 
time of day in which young ladies generally used 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 151 

to set out on their daily stroll in my day, and 
perhaps may do at the present. Now, this cus- 
tomary stroll at such a place as Cambridge, forms 
no small portion of a young lady's stock of pleas- 
ures ; since it requires but a moderate share of 
personal attraction to become "the cynosure" of 
the multitude of eyes which are gazing on the part 
of the under-graduates at the female part of the 
population. * 

It would not become me to sound my own 
praises on the score of my personal pretensions to 
good looks. My mother's remark, on Sterling's 
saying one day, as he was going out with me for a 
walk, " I declare that girl is not bad-looking," (I 
am sure, if I had been, I should never have been 
seen in public by his side), and my mother's reply, 
as I was about to state, will give my portrait : " If 
she is but as good as she is good-looking," she 
said, " she will do very well." 

Such as I was in this respect, I knew very well 
that I had my admirers ; and consequently it was 
a great point to keep up this passing pleasantry of 
being looked at, and looked for, in the daily walk 
that was to supply it. 



152 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

Whilst my brother was in college, it was not 
difficult to obtain, but when he was gone I had to 
take up with what I could get as a comrade for my 
daily exercise — my mother walking nowhere but 
to church ; and my father never by any chance 
selecting me as his walking companion. 

In this extremity, it was a perfect Godsend when 
I fell in with Miss Bird, whose circumstances were 
like my own, with respect to her being the only 
resident daughter with aged and infirm parents, 
who lived in great seclusion from the amusements 
and society of the place. 

I had known her for some time before I formed 
any particular intimacy with her, from being in 
the habit of meeting her at the house of a Miss 
Howard, of whom I must say a few words, as she 
is mixed up in a small measure in what I have to 
relate. She was an elderly spinster of near forty 
years of age, living with an old father, who was 
blind, and kept himself for the most part in his 
own apartments ; leaving his daughter to be the 
manager and mistress of his house, in the way 
that best pleased her. As this was to bring about 
her pleasant members of the university, young or 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 153 

elderly, or both, whose presence at her tea-table 
was sanctioned by the society of a married brother 
and his wife who lived in the house, her parties 
were always very agreeable, and I was pleased when 
she invited me to partake of them, which she now 
and then did. Her notice of me was not from any 
particular regard she had for me ; for I believe 
she felt the distaste which a person in her case 
would be likely to entertain for a girl who usurped 
a place which she herself once occupied as"an object 
of some notice and admiration ; but from which, 
advancing years and fading attractions had dis- 
placed her. She had certainly, in her youth, been 
very pretty, and on that account, admired. But 
she was vain and silly to the last degree of folly, 
in trying at the hopeless task of repairing her 
dilapidated charms by rouge and washes, and such 
" appliances and means to boot/' by which, after 
the fashion of Madame Rachel, she might keep 
herself " beautiful for ever." Hopeless as such 
attempts must be, even when directed by consum- 
mate skill, as we may take it for granted are those 
of Madame Rachel, they were not only fruitless in 
accomplishing their purpose, but they fulfilled a 



154 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

consequence which was the very last that Miss 
Howard intended, or had the slightest con- 
ception of, in rendering her ridiculous to behold, 
by the preposterous fashion in which she applied 
them. 

I cannot say that I have the slightest idea of 
the best way of putting on rouge ; but I am quite 
sure that it ought not to be daubed upon each 
cheek in a sharply-defined circle about the size of 
a five-shilling piece, which was Miss Howard's mode 
of using it. She had, however, got accustomed 
to the sight of her own face thus illuminated, and 
I suppose, by intimacy with its appearance, was 
not aware of its absurdity. 

She played on the piano pretty well ; and 
sought the society of persons who were fond of 
music ; and still more those who could keep up 
the ball of conversation ; not for any fitness that 
she herself had for it, for she was amazingly silly ; 
but rather, I believe, from a secret conviction, that 
if she desired to maintain her acquaintance with 
members of the university, she must bring about 
her some persons of her own sex more capable of 
interesting them than herself or Fanny Bird. This 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 155 

last individual was her very intimate friend ; I 
always supposed, from a congeniality of feebleness 
of mind, for Fanny was very weak. But she was 
superior to Miss Howard in knowing how to avoid 
making herself conspicuous in her mode of dress. 
She had a defect in her speech, which, added to 
a plain personal appearance, made it safest for her 
to keep, as she always did, retired and silent in com- 
pany ; and the chance was, that for the most part, 
anybody that had to give an account of the guests 
assembled at a party at which she was present, 
would be apt totally to overlook her. But she 
was lady-like in her manners, and from her position 
in life, admissible into the best company of the 
place ; and somehow or another, generally found 
in it ; — probably from the harmlessness of her 
presence, which prevented her standing in the way 
of other girls who wanted to be prominent, or 
whose parents wished to make them so. There 
was also an idea prevalent that it was an act of 
charity to ask "poor Fanny Bird to a party;" and 
thus it happened that there were but few parties 
to which she did not make her way. After I got 
intimate with her, I scarcely recollect an occasion 



156 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

on which Professor Smyth gave a concert in which 
he did not include Fanny in the invitation he gave 
to me, which was assuredly an act of pure benevo- 
lence on his part, as she was neither useful nor 
ornamental in his concert-room. 

I used to hope and persuade myself, that this 
was his motive for such an attention ; for, to speak 
truly, I should have felt humbled that it was sug- 
gested by a desire to show attention to Fanny 
Bird on the ground of her being my particular 
friend. The disparity which, without being guilty 
of undue self-conceit, I could not but be conscious 
existed between us on the score of mental ability, 
often making me somewhat ashamed of the close 
connexion I had formed with her ; and which 
nothing but my lack of suitable associates for the 
daily walk which was one of the few resources of 
my life, could possibly have induced me to en- 
gage in. 

I have travelled by a very circuitous path to 
the point I had in view respecting the attachment 
to which I alluded, and concerning which I will 
now more directly speak, — by stating, that it was 
in my visits to Miss Howard that I was in the 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 157 

habit of constantly meeting at her tea-table a 
young under-graduate of the name of Halford. 
Whoever was absent, he was never to be missed ; 
but what particular inducement brought him there 
it always puzzled me to imagine. It was not to 
take any share in the conversation that passed; 
for he was reserved and silent, and except as he 
listened to the music which might happen to be 
going on, he was apparently indifferent to the 
whole of the matter. Now and then, indeed, he 
indicated by a quiet smile that he was observing 
with some kind of interest what was passing ; but 
whether his smile were not rather of an ironical 
than of a kindly character, seemed to be doubtful. 
As this testimony was usually given when I was 
what Professor Smyth used to term " in full force," 
that is to say, coming out strong in talk and laugh- 
ter, or perhaps, in the milder mode of music, which 
commonly was asked for, at my hands at these 
visits ; — I got an idea that Mr Halford was no 
particular friend of mine. In fact, I settled it in 
my own mind, that he had set me down in his as 
a vain coquette, with whom display was the only 
object for which she lived and acted. It thus 



158 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

happened, that I exceedingly disliked him, and 
avoided to recognise him when we met in the 
street. 

Some three or four years might pass in this 
way ; during which time, though I met Miss Bird 
frequently at Miss Howard's, I had formed no im- 
mediately personal acquaintance with her. Some 
circumstance, the nature of which I forget, led to 
her calling upon me, and thus began our alliance 
as walking companions. 

I had observed in my visits at Miss Howard's, 
that there was a great intimacy between Mr 
Halford and Miss Bird ; to whom the chief part of 
the little he did say was generally addressed, and 
whom he never failed to escort home, as a thing of 
course. 

Had it not seemed preposterous to suppose that 
anybody could be in love with poor Fanny, I 
should have imagined that something in the shape 
of attachment subsisted between them. But this 
appearing impossible, I concluded that his civilities 
to her originated from his being a family friend, 
and as such, desirous of showing a compassionate 
sympathy to so helpless a member of the house- 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. i 59 

hold as Fanny was. At the time when my 
personal intercourse with her commenced, my 
acquaintance with Miss Howard had declined ; 
owing to an alteration in her mode of life on the 
event of the death of her father, which, by causing 
her to reside in apartments, circumscribed her 
former habit of assembling visitors to her tea-table. 
I do not remember ever being her guest after this 
change occurred in her circumstances ; though in 
a small way, I believe she still had her parties. 
But I was not invited to them ; not being perhaps 
wanted, as in former times, to help matters off 
when her guests were more numerous. 

The interval which had separated me from her 
society, had also separated me from that of Mr 
Halford ; and I had almost forgotten that such a 
person existed, when he was brought to my re- 
membrance by once more meeting him as an inti- 
mate acquaintance at the house of Fanny's parents ; 
where I became myself also a frequent guest. It 
was not that Mr and Mrs Bird presented more 
lively specimens of human nature than I found at 
home in my own parents, that I soon got to find 
my visits at their house something to anticipate 



160 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

with pleasure ; but because at their tea-table it was 
seldom that Mr Halford was not a dropper-in ; 
and the Mr Halford that now offered himself to 
my observation was a very different person from 
the one I had formerly known. He was different 
first of all, in position ; the interval of three or four 
years having, by the circumstance of his taking 
a very high degree, placed him in the station of 
fellow and tutor of his college. Above all, he was 
different in distinguishing me by marked at- 
tentions; and he was different from the silent 
person that was seldom heard to speak at all 
at Miss Howard's tea-table, to one, who, at 
that of Mrs Bird, was a fluent and very agreeable 
converser. 

That these alterations on his side should pro- 
duce a corresponding change on mine, with respect 
to the interest I took in his society, was only to be 
expected. That he was no common person, I 
always suspected, in the days when I met him at 
Miss Howard's ; for though silent, and his occa- 
sional smile indicating one scarcely knew what of 
feeling, — there was an air of superiority about him, 
and a look of intelligence, which clearly manifested 



A Record of Facts and Feeli?tgs. 1 6 1 

that he was, as, I have said, no common person. 
You might have said that he seemed to be proud 
and reserved, and in that way, not agreeable ; but 
you would never have overlooked him in company 
from his being insignificant. Once, I remember, 
even in those days, a little passage — a very little 
one — in the shape of talk passing between him 
and me — from which I imbibed a notion that he 
was, though very disagreeable, yet an accomplished 
man on the subject of refined literature. It oc- 
curred thus. It was summer-time, and the window 
being open, two or three of us were standing by 
it in Miss Howard's drawing-room ; and the moon 
attracting attention from its shining with great 
brilliancy, Mr Halford uttered in ajow voice — 

" And oft as if her head she bow'd, 
Stooping through a fleecy cloud." 

I well recollected the lines, from having read, or 
learned them in some school lesson ; but knew 
nothing of, or had forgotten, their author, as my 
remark of, " That is Walter Scott's, I think," 
sufficiently testified. 

With what seemed to me more than ever a hate- 



1 62 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

ful smile, he bowed to me and said the one word, 
" Milton's." 

For the moment — how I hated him ; the quiet 
tone of the reply, coupled with the smile, convey- 
ing a notion of his saying to himself, " What an 
ignoramus that girl is ! " 

But to return to my present impression of the 
idea he was forming of me. It was by no means 
that of my being an ignoramus. On the contrary, 
it was the charm of my life to believe, that, in the 
frequent intercourse that passed between us, es- 
pecially in the many summer evening walks which 
he took with Fanny and me, he found me as re- 
sponsive as he could wish, to the thoughtful and 
refined tone of conversation in which it was his 
habit on those occasions to indulge. 

I will not permit myself to be led aside by the 
garrulity of my age and nature, insensibly to glide 
into a detailed statement of this unhappy passage 
in my experience. I am somewhat ashamed, after 
what I set out v/ith saying on the subject of auto- 
biography, to find how greatly I have trespassed 
against all the excellent things respecting its danger, 
and my purpose of avoiding it, to which I then gave 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 63 

utterance. Suffice it to say, that, after the lapse of 
some months of intimate association with Mr Hal- 
ford, I became greatly attached to him ; not after 
the fashion of the girlish folly which accompanied 
my first fancy of the sort ; but with an affection that 
was founded upon a sense of his merits, or what I 
took for such ; — and upon a belief which his atten- 
tions to me unquestionably authorised me to 
entertain, of his being also greatly attached to 
me. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

HAVE said enough in this Record touching 
the terrible reaction which often converts 
the sweet sentiment of love into a stormy pas- 
sion of an entirely opposite nature. It is not with- 
out reason that Rochefoucault has remarked, that 
" to judge of love by some of its effects, it is more 
like hatred than love." 

It was so with me, when time and circumstances 
made it only too certain, that in the attentions he 
had paid me, Mr Halford had only been influenced 
by that passing interest which many persons of 
his sex think it perfectly allowable to feel and to 
manifest, as long as no explicit avowal of attach- 
ment is made on their part. I may condense what 
I have to state on this head by saying, that at the 
end of about a year after our intimacy took place, 
the last three months of which being the period of 



0;- 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 165 

the long vacation, he had spent away from college, 
an entire cessation of intercourse had taken place 
between us. In this interval I had talked the 
matter over with the Waltons ; who were far more 
congenial confidantes and sympathisers than 
Fanny. It was totally impossible that she should 
not have remarked Mr Halford's apparent interest 
in me ; but whenever I sounded her on the subject, 
with a hope of discovering some clue to the real 
state of his feelings for me, I found her totally im- 
penetrable as to yielding anything like a comfort- 
able response to my approaches. So far from it, 
she usually spoke of his manner to me as having 
nothing unusual in it. He was apt to show great 
interest in the society of clever women, she said ; 
and then, alluding to a lady whose poetical effu- 
sions he greatly admired, and some of which he had 
repeated, and copied out for me, — she added that 
she had seen him pay quite as much attention to 
her as to me. On repeating this to the Waltons, 
they flatly said they did not believe it ; for that 
the lady in question, whom we all knew by sight, 
and by her position, which was that of a farmer's 
daughter in a neighbouring village, — though un- 



1 66 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

questionably a person of genius, was much too 
homely in her appearance and her connexions for 
so proud a man as Mr Halford to distinguish by 
any marked attention. What they did believe 
was, that Miss Bird was in love with him herself; 
and that the cause of her evading to express the 
conviction she could not but feel, of Mr Halford's 
attachment to me, was, the jealousy with which it 
had inspired her. 

I cannot say but that an idea of this kind had 
crossed my own mind ; and hence I was not so 
much disturbed by her way of treating the matter 
as I otherwise should have been. 

At all events, I yielded a ready assent to the 
advice they both gave me, not only not to speak 
of him myself to Fanny, but to bind her down by 
a solemn promise not to speak of me to him, when 
he again fell in her way. " There was no saying," 
Martha observed, "what mischief a weak creature 
like that might do, by talking to him about me. 
(I may observe in passing, that her standing aloof 
from their acquaintance, rendered Fanny par- 
ticularly obnoxious to the Waltons ; as did 
Halford's reticence towards them, when they 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 167 

occasionally met him in any company, disincline 
them to regard him with favour.) "By all means, 
therefore," she said, "keep as far away from the 
subject as you possibly can in all you have to say 
to her ; and keep as far away also, from him, when 
he returns to college. I would not go to Miss 
Bird's house, if I were you, lest I should be 
thought to put myself in his way — she can come 
to you, if she wants to see you." 

As Martha Walton was a very sensible girl, 
with a far more practical sense of female dignity 
than fell to my share, I was willing to be guided 
by her counsel, and promised that I would faith- 
fully follow it. 

This promise I adhered to, till the return of 
Halford to college, with which I accidentally 
became acquainted, excited so strong a desire to 
hear something about him, that I could not refrain 
from inquiring of Fanny every time we met, if she 
had seen anything of him ? 

The resolution not to go to her house I rigidly 
kept ; and it was only by visits to me that I saw 
her. Our usual walks went on, which from the 
time of year were confined to the morning ; when, 



168 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

in the time of our greatest intimacy with him, we 
scarcely ever were joined by Halford ; whose col- 
lege and other engagements generally occupied 
him that part of the day. 

I found from Fanny, that more than a fortnight 
had passed after he returned before he dropped 
in one evening to take tea at her house ; and that, 
on that occasion of her seeing him, he had made 
no inquiry after me. 

" And you said nothing about me V 

"Of course not," she replied; "you remember 
that you desired me expressly not to mention your 
name." I could not help wishing with all my 
heart that I had not done so ; for I thought it 
only too likely that it was her not making any 
allusion to me, that had occasioned him to make 
none himself; for, of course, he would think she 
had some cause for her silence, and one which 
augured no good to him, with regard to my 
solicitude to hear of his welfare. 

It was clear that he had made use of the oppor- 
tunity which the long vacation afforded, of disen- 
gaging his mind from any importunate feelings 
which might have entered it on my account. But 



A Record of * Facts and Feelings. 169 

how differently had I passed that interval ! It 
was not in attempting to drive him from my mind, 
but in feeding the impression he had left upon it 
by fond reminiscences of the past delightful sum- 
mer, — with its sweet evening walks, and the ex- 
quisite gratification which accompanied them in 
the secret tokens of tenderness they brought me 
from him. 

Fanny, indeed, was present ; but Fanny was 
near-sighted, as well as dense of observation. She 
could not therefore perceive (or, if she did, she 
made no comment to me on it) when the arm of 
Halford encircled my waist as we sat down by 
the hour together in his college garden, whither, 
during the latter period of our evening walks, we 
had, at his suggestion, repaired, in preference to 
going for a country ramble, as had been, in the 
first instance, our custom. 

Could I forget these tender testimonies of his 
love ? Was it an easy matter — was it a matter 
that I could for a moment endure to think of — to 
cast them from my memory as things of nought, 
and to tear up by the root that enchanting pas- 
sion which, for so many months, had made the 



1 70 The Solace of a 'Solitaire : 

charm of my most uncharming life ? Was it, in 
short, a dream that meant nothing ? This was 
the incessant inquiry which tormented me during 
a separation which deluding hope led me daily to 
expect would be ameliorated, if not ended, by his 
addressing to me a letter avowing his attachment. 
This being withheld, after his silently stealing 
away, in a manner that looked ominous to me, 
and which to the Waltons appeared only too 
significant of his intending to retreat out of the 
affair, — I could only cling to a hope that his 
return to college would bring with it a renewal of 
his attentions, and that avowal of their purport 
which I could not allow myself to believe would 
never be made. 

It may be supposed, therefore, that the account 
I heard from Fanny, and which continued during 
some weeks to be the same, of his never mention- 
ing my name, must have occasioned me extreme 
distress. Undoubtedly it did ; but it was not 
simply the distress of disappointed hope that 
agitated me. The elements of anger and vindic- 
tiveness were far too potent in my temperament 
not to rise up with extreme vehemence at finding 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 171 

myself thus ignominiously treated. Oh, how I 
longed to meet him, that I might pass him by 
with a scathing glance of silent contempt ! But 
of meeting him I had no chance ; for Fanny said 
that he had told her he kept almost entirely 
secluded in his college rooms — seldom leaving 
them, but for an occasional call at her house. 
That this mode of keeping out of the way arose 
from a wish to avoid the chance of meeting me, 
I could not doubt. 

Altogether I was wretched beyond the power of 
words to describe. Poor Fanny, who, I believe, in 
her small way sincerely loved me, used to try and 
soothe me by ringing the changes upon his having 
flirted, as she called it, with others as well as me. 
It was his way, she said, and she fully believed 
he could not help it. To my unutterable surprise, 
on my replying to this with the ironical inquiry 
of, "Did he ever flirt with you?" she hung down 
her head, and in a low tone of voice replied, " That 
he certainly at one time had paid her a great deal 
of attention." 

It almost took away my breath to hear her 
make such a statement. Attention to Fanny 



172 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

Bird ! Who next ? I thought. Possibly, Miss 
Howard might have come in for a share of his 
heart ; and, though wondering at my own ab- 
surdity in putting such a question, I asked if this 
had ever been the case ? 

" Well, she would not say that it had not. At 
any rate, Miss Howard at one time believed that 
he was attached to her." 

The first sensation that I experienced on 
hearing this intelligence was that of a disdain that 
seemed to liberate me at once from every grain 
of attachment to Halford. The man who would 
make Fanny Bird and Miss Howard the objects of 
any attention but that of civility, — or of any sort 
or semblance .of behaviour that could be mistaken 
for love, — must be, I thought, such a double-dyed 
rascal, that it was little less than infamous to be 
attached to him. For, what possible motive could 
he have in noticing these women with any 
appearance of especial interest, except to amuse 
himself at their expense ? 

The Waltons, however, were not inclined to 
believe that this had been the case. It was not 
that they were disposed to favour him ; for they 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 173 

fully believed that he had deserted, and used me 
extremely ill. But they thought that the charge 
of paying too much attention to Fanny Bird and 
Miss Howard had its ground only in their own 
folly. It was likely enough, they thought, that so 
weak a person as Fanny might easily mistake 
compassion for love ; and with respect to Miss 
Howard, who laid herself out by efforts that every- 
body detected and laughed at, to win the notice 
of every man that came in her way, it would take 
very little in the shape of civility on Mr Halford's 
part to make her think that he was in love with 
her. 

As usual, my talking with them, in some mea- 
sure composed my mind, and relieved it a little 
from the extremely agitating emotions which 
Fanny Bird's discourse had occasioned. 



CHAPTER XX. 

T HAD no alternative but to be quiet and bear 
as best I could, the wretchedness which had 
succeeded to my former enjoyment. I wished — 
and I did more than wish — I prayed earnestly for 
strength, and for the consolation which I felt well 
assured, could only come from divine succour. 
As testimony that I did not make use merely of 
the verbiage, which it is often the habit of afflicted 
young people to indulge in, before experience has 
made them really convinced that " God alone is 
their refuge and strength ; a very present help in 
time of trouble," I will here subjoin some lines, 
in which at this time, with heartfelt fervour, I 
poured forth the agonising anguish that oppressed 
me : — 

" O Power Supreme, my Maker and my God ! 
To Thee with supplicating heart I bend ; 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 75 

If I am call'd to feel thy chastening rod, 
Do Thou one ray of heavenly hope extend, 
And leave me not, my Father and my Friend. 

Without Thy aid, my spirit sinks oppress'd, 
For sin and sorrow bow me to the ground. 

With Thee, O Lord, my troubled soul would rest, 
With Thee, in whom alone repose is found. 

Oh teach me, then, the calm and better way, 
That leads to perfect and enduring bliss, 

That points to realms of everlasting day, 

And turns the sufferer from a world like this, 
Where all is disappointment and distress ! " 

Young as I was, the world had been to me far 
more of this sad character than of any other ; and 
from my earliest years, a strange melancholy sense 
of sorrow had often prompted religious thoughts 
and feelings, very unusual in such early life. As it 
has a direct bearing upon this point, I will trans- 
cribe a passage from a work in which I have alluded 
to what might, possibly, be the secret cause of this 
precocious tendency to devotional feeling : — 

" I cannot recollect the time in which I was 
not the better for sorrow ; for I cannot remember 
the distress of any kind that did not, as by instinct, 
carry me straight to God, as a child when vexed 
runs to its mother for help and comfort. 

" And here, as a physical fact that may not be 



176 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

without its significance to the thoughtful observer 
of nature, I may mention a circumstance that 
perhaps carries with it some solution of the rather 
singular fact of a child of ten years old, under a 
deep sense of injury and injustice, hastening to her 
bed-room, shutting the door, and kneeling down 
to implore, with sobs and tears, that God would 
comfort her — as I well remember doing on one 
occasion when I had been unkindly, or rather, I 
should say, injudiciously treated ; for the lecture 
that wounded me was certainly needed, but the 
words and way in which it was delivered, some- 
thing worse than annihilated all the benefit it was 
designed to convey. 

" The circumstance to which I allude was once, 
and only once, with affecting earnestness, brought 
before me by my mother, on some occasion of 
disturbance between me and my father. She had 
sometimes thought, she said, that the cause of 
the wretched estrangement which existed between 
him and me, had its origin in the misery that his 
restlessness and irascible temper had more parti- 
cularly occasioned her, during her pregnancy with 
me, than at any former time. ' I never lived so 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 7 7 

unhappily with him as during that time/ she said. 
She did not add, but from her devotional nature 
I can feel assured that it was the fact, that she 
never also lived so much in the practice of prayer. 
Her unborn offspring had need of the act as well 
as herself; and even if erroneous, it has still been 
very sweet to me to believe that I benefited both by 
her sorrow and her supplications ; though possibly, 
in the mysterious operation of physical causes, I 
might inherit from her troubled mind, many pain- 
ful feelings in relation to my other parent."* 

I might, perhaps, have struggled through my 
present trial, by the help of the prayers I put up 
for strength, and which, most assuredly, "went not 
forth from feigned lips;" but in the early part 
of the year, a circumstance occurred which tended 
greatly to increase my sufferings. This was the 
arrival from London of a Miss Hart, a cousin of 
Fanny Bird's, to make her a visit of some weeks. 
She was an attractive girl both in person and 
manner ; and, as far as I could judge, of a superior 
and cultivated mind. Her presence seemed to 
radiate a measure of mental power over Fanny ; 

* " Reminiscences of Thought and Feeling," p. 146. 

M 



1 78 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

who from the time of her cousin's visit, came out 
after a fashion of self-assertion quite new, and 
strangely offensive to me, to whom she had always 
been as yielding as wax to the seal. The fact, I 
have no doubt, was, that she had talked over with 
Miss Hart the affair in which she had lately taken 
the part, though but a mute, and what must have 
seemed to a sensible person, rather the ignoble one, 
of a medium for intercourse which took place 
between me and Halford ; and had been advised by 
her cousin to stand aloof from having any more 
to do with it. It was only on this idea that I 
could account for the rather stately reserve with 
which she met my never-failing questions as to 
what she knew about Halford. For it was in vain 
that I had resolved not to speak to her of him. 
I would do nothing else whenever we met ; which, 
till the arrival of Miss Hart, had been, as usual, 
almost every day. After she came, Fanny, on the 
ground of having to go out with her cousin, (who, 
being on her first visit to Cambridge, had many 
sights to see,) came to me less frequently. 

As far as her society went, the reduction of her 
visits would have given me no concern ; but as 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 179 

being the only channel by which I would hear of 
Halford, their becoming not only less frequent, 
but also very trying, by the haste in which she 
generally ended them, by saying, she must go, as 
her cousin was waiting for her to go here or go 
there, to see some college hall, or garden, or chapel, 
or library, — they became to me a perfect infliction. 
More especially were they this, when, by dint of 
questioning and cross-questioning, I discovered 
that, although not their escort in their morning 
engagements in seeing sights, Mr Halford was very 
often their visitor in the evening. 

"And flirting, I suppose, with Miss Hart/' I said. 

" He admires her very much," she replied. 

I need not say how this state of matters added 
fuel to the wrathful indignation against Halford, 
which, though by no means subdued, was, by the 
best efforts I could make, and the force of circum- 
stances that constrained me to be mute and motion- 
less, — kept in abeyance till now. But now, — now 
the storm became too furious, too overwhelming 
to stand against. My soul drifted into a whirlpool 
that drove it hither and thither amidst the perilous 
rocks of desperate passions, which made me reck- 



1 80 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

less of danger, and bent upon nothing but satisfy- 
ing the thirst for revenge which sprung from the 
fiery wrath that governed me. I must do some- 
thing — but what ? Shall I go bodily to Halford's 
rooms, and upbraid him to his face with the 
cruelty and perfidy of his conduct ? Oh, not that, 
for heaven's sake, and any sake, not that, my 
common sense exclaimed, as this suggestion darted 
across my mind. 

"An anonymous letter ? That was better ; but 
of what use would it be ? How could I word it ? 
— what had I to say under a mask that would not 
degrade, without being of the least use in gratify- 
ing me ?" 

All at once it occurred to me, that a sharp, 
stinging address to him in the shape of a 
valentine, would be a capital arrow to shoot ; and 
one which, from the circumstance of its not being 
unusual for people to address, and be addressed, 
anonymously, on that particular day which goes 
by the name of St Valentine's — would, at the 
same time that it afforded me the opportunity 
of chastising him, place me in ambush whilst I 
made use of it. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 8 1 

It was altogether a charming thought, and one 
that should forthwith be transmuted into a deed ; 
for, on referring to the calendar, I found that the 
fourteenth of February was near at hand, not 
much more than a week intervening, Refreshed 
and invigorated by merely having something to 
do — and something so full of point and purpose as 
that of inditing, and writing, and transmitting this 
valentine — I set myself to the fulfilment of my 
intention with a will. 






CHAPTER XXL 

'HT^HE valentine was written, and as far as 
language could give force to indignation, it 
was alive with scorn. Having no copy of it, and 
but a very slight and fragmentary recollection of 
a line here and there, I cannot pretend to offer 
anything approaching to a specimen of its 
contents. 

I remember that it gave a list of the ladies to 
whom Mr Halford was reputed to have paid the 
attentions of a lover ; and I recollect that in 
introducing Miss Howard amongst them, the first 
two lines were these : — 

' ' A painted spinster in the list succeeds, 
For whom a while thy stricken bosom bleeds." 

The rest of it I cannot recall. 

With respect to Fanny Bird, I think there were 
only four lines; but describing her with unmis- 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 8 3 

takable accuracy. I recollect that the two last 
of them spoke of her as 

" Homely in person, and of empty mind, 
Her only charm, she was of womankind." 

I reserved my own case for the last. I think 
there were eight lines in it ; but I can only 
remember the first and the last couplet — of these 
the first ran thus : — 

" One unrecorded yet, — the last deceived, 
Who, all too credulous, thy love believed." 

What came next I entirely forget ; but I suppose 
it had reference to his being ashamed of himself, 
or having cause to be ; for it concluded with the 
words — 

" And fit it were to hide that guilty face, 
Which needs must blush with merited disgrace." 

The next thing was to get somebody to 
transcribe it, as he was familiar with my hand- 
writing. There was no difficulty here, for Sarah 
Walton willingly undertook this office, and also to 
send it to a friend in London, with strict direc- 
tions to post it so as that it should greet him at 
his breakfast-table on the morning of Valentine's 



184 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

Day. Both she and her sister were delighted with 
it, and enjoyed the flagellation it would administer 
to Halford, almost as much as I did. 

At length the day — "the auspicious day, big 
with the fate," — of what to me was of much more 
importance than that of " Cato and of Rome " — 
arrived ; and I feasted all the morning in 
picturing to myself the sentiments with which 
it would inspire the recipient of it. That he 
would be wounded very deeply by the humiliat- 
ing picture it drew of his taste in love matters, I 
felt very certain. Miss Howard, and Fanny Bird ! 
To both of them he always paid kind atten- 
tions ; but that to neither was it possible that he 
could have extended a thought of anything 
beyond civility, I had got to believe as firmly as 
the Waltons. He had received, as it were, the 
freedom of the house, to come when he liked, and 
stay as long as he liked, from the friends of both 
Miss Howard and Miss Bird ; and he considered 
it but becoming to requite their hospitality by 
the courtesies of a gentleman. This, I have no 
doubt, was the right reading of what Fanny and 
her friend had misinterpreted into a warmer 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 1 8 5 

meaning, and one which I dare say it never entered 
his head to imagine that anybody could insult him 
by attaching to it. 

Few persons were less likely than he was, to be 
approached with any sort of undue freedom ; — his 
extreme reserve, except where he was on very in- 
timate terms, and his lofty pride, throwing a 
potent shield of defence against the slightest touch 
of impertinence. How he would wince then, when 
this shower of darts came pelting upon him ! It 
was after this manner that I tried to satiate the 
longing of my soul to repay him some of the pain 
he had so long and so heavily heaped upon me. 

All this, however, was but imaginary gratifica- 
tion ; and I should soon have felt its insufficiency 
to produce any result that was of much value, had 
I not hoped that on the following day I should be 
able, by quiet and skilful management, to extract 
from Fanny some tidings of the effect it had pro- 
duced. She and her cousin were on the evening 
of Valentine's Day to be at a party at Miss 
Howard's ; and by dint of great trouble in asking 
heaps of questions to which she would for some 
time only give the most vague replies, I discovered 



1 36 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

that Mr Halford was to be there. That he would 
try and sound Fanny in order to discover if she 
knew anything of the valentine, I felt quite certain; 
for, all that she did know, he was well aware that 
it would be no difficult task for him to extract. 
I say for him it would be easy enough to get out 
of Fanny all that he wished to know, if it were 
known to herself; but where Fanny had no desire 
to impart intelligence, you might as well have 
sought it out of a brick wall as out of her. She 
used to torment me on the subject of Halford, till 
I felt as if I must give her a good shake or a box 
on the ear. The plain truth was, that she had 
dwelt long enough as a cypher between Halford 
and me ; — powerless to interpose in the pleasure 
we took in each other's society, and therefore mak- 
ing a virtue of necessity, and meekly enduring it. 
Now the tables were turned, and her day of power 
was come ; and with the natural delight of a narrow 
mind in being able to tease a larger one, she made 
me feel that she had, for once, got the upper hand 
of me. 

I had got her to promise that she would call 
upon me on the day following Miss Howard's 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 187 

party, though I had some difficulty in obtaining 
her consent to do so : " She would if she could, 
but it must be in the afternoon, as they had an 
engagement for the morning." 

In the afternoon, therefore, I retired to my bed- 
room, where I usually received her visits, my father 
not liking her, nor my intimacy with such a three- 
parts idiot as he thought her. That I sat down 
with intense excitement to wait her arrival I need 
not say. It did not tend to prepare me for the 
quiet and cautious way of dealing with her which 
I was aware would be highly necessary, that she 
kept me waiting a full hour before she made her 
appearance, and that when she did come, the first 
thing she said was, that "she could not stay a 
minute ; for that they were going out to tea, and 
she must return home to dress." 

I felt excessively angry, and could but ill com- 
mand myself to ask, with needful calmness, after 
the circumstances of the preceding evening. I 
made the effort to ask, as if I did not care much 
about the answer, " if Halford was of the party at 
Miss Howard's ? " 

"Yes." 



1 88 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

" And how did he behave ? " 

"Just as usual." 

" I suppose he did not speak of me ?" 

" He never mentioned your name." 

" Nor you ? " 

"Certainly not. You desired that I never 
would. But now I really must go," and she rose 
from her seat. Half mad, (I need not say half — 
you will think I was wholly so, presently,) I took 
her by my two hands and forcibly replaced her on 
her chair. " Sit down," I said, in a voice that half 
frightened her, and forced her into obedience, " I 
have something particular to ask about. Now, 
was Halford just as usual last night ? " 

" To be sure he was. Why shouldn't he ? " 

"Why shoiridnt he!" I will tell you why. The 
man who yesterday morning had received such an 
epistle as this (I took a copy of the valentine from 
my pocket) ought to be in a state of feeling very 
far from what was usual with him. I will read it 
to you." 

She evinced no sort of hurry to be off now, but 
set herself, with manifest eagerness of look, to 
listen to what was coming. I began, and read 



A Record of Facts and Feelings, 1 89 

with the energy that my highly-excited state pro- 
duced, unvisited with any sense of the dilemma 
into which I had plunged, till I came within sight 
of the lines that had reference to Fanny. Then, 
indeed, a sense of the amazing folly of my conduct 
frightfully stared me in the face ! I must go on 
with it, that was clear. To leave off there would 
be to proclaim that there was something left 
which she was not to hear. Luckily the lines 
that related to her were detached, and could easily 
be passed over, which of course they were, and I 
went on smoothly enough to the end of it. She 
was visibly listening with strained attention to 
every word, and chuckled amazingly at the lines 
about the " painted spinster." " Ah, that's Miss 
Howard," she said. When I came to those which 
touched upon my own case, she said nothing. 

"And now," said I, as, having concluded, I 
doubled up the letter, and returned it to my 
pocket, "will you tell me that Halford said no- 
thing that had any relation to this letter, which 
was addressed to him as a valentine, yesterday 
being Valentine's Day ? " 

She coloured of the deepest crimson as she re- 



1 90 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

plied, u He did tell me that he had been favoured 
with a valentine." 

" Nothing more ? " 

" He said that he could guess the quarter from 
whence it came." 

" And yet you told me that he never mentioned 
me ? " 

" I told you that he never mentioned your name. 
No more he did." 

Finding that there was nothing further to be 
drawn out of her than just this vague account of 
what he said about it, I no longer opposed her 
going. But now aware of the terrible chance to 
which I had exposed myself, of her betraying me 
to him, I bound her down by a promise little less 
sacred than a vow, that she would not disclose 
to him that I was the author of the valentine; nor 
yet to her cousin, or her mother, or any one else. 
She readily gave me her sacred word that she 
would faithfully keep my secret ; and that no one 
should hear from her what had just passed be- 
tween us. 

Having brought my narration to the point of 
hasty and indiscreet speech which I proposed to 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 191 

illustrate, by this particular instance of my own 
folly in that respect, I might now conclude it with 
but a few words descriptive of its result. 

But I should be unjust to myself, and also to 
Halford, to leave off with this " lame and impotent 
conclusion," when the sequel, as it regards us both, 
conducts to something a little better. 

I proceed, therefore, to state, that Fanny had 
no sooner taken leave than I went to the Waltons 
to relate to them what had passed ; though, truth 
to say, I scarcely knew how to report myself as 
having acted so foolishly. They were, as they 
well might be, overpowered with amazement ; and 
could only comment on the case with uplifted 
hands and interjections. 

Sarah was the first to speak her thoughts of the 
matter ; which she did in the sensible remark of, 
" I wonder, when these impulses to cut your own 
throat with your tongue come upon you, that you 
don't run straight into some room, and save your- 
self by locking the door, and throwing the key out 
of the window." 

" I wonder I don't," said I, " but that remedy 
comes too late now." 



192 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

" I hope you didn't tell Miss Bird that I trans- 
cribed it ? " she asked, as if fearing that I had 
gone into all the details of the affair. 

Happily I could satisfy her that this had not 
happened ; and that no one was implicated in my 
rashness but myself. 

And with respect to this, I said, " I hoped there 
was nothing to fear ; for I had made Miss Bird 
give me a sacred promise that she would not 
divulge to Halford, nor yet to any one else, that 
I was the author of the valentine." 

They both of them doubted the security of 
Fanny's promise. 

"Why, surely," said I, " she would not perjure 
herself? for it was not much otherwise than by an 
oath that I bound her to secrecy." 

" She will not, I dare say, directly tell Mr Hal- 
ford that you are the author of the valentine," 
said Martha ; " but just think of the easiness with 
which he can get out of her, if not all she knows, 
yet that she knows something on the subject." 

"Besides," said Sarah, "it is totally impossible 
that such a silly creature as she is, can support the 
importance of being intrusted with such a secret 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 193 

as that, without blinking and winking, or by some 
dumb show or another, letting it be known." 

" God help me then," said I. " I have made a 
mess of it ! " 

" Well, well," said Martha ; " it cannot be helped 
now. Try and forget it ; and come down and 
drink tea with us, and we will have some nice 
music afterwards." 

" Thus cheer'd they their poor friend,* 
And she was cheered." 



* I take the liberty of substituting these words in the place of 
his fair spouse," in Milton. 



N 



CHAPTER XXII. 

T HAD not long to wait before Fanny's man- 
ner sufficiently testified that she had, by 
some means or another, imbibed a notion that 
she had not heard the whole of the valentine. 
At length she point-blank asked me if I had read 
it all to her ? 

I did not go into the direct falsehood of saying 
that I had done so. I fenced off her query by 
asking, " Why she doubted it ? " 

" Mr Halford," she said, "had hinted that she 
herself was mentioned in it." 

You may depend upon it, that I availed myself 
of the opportunity this gave me of changing the 
subject, by accusing her of having violated her 
promise not to speak to him about it. 

" I dare say you have told him that I read it to 
you," I said. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings, 195 

She had not done so, she replied ; nor had she 
said a word to him of what had passed. 

" It was he himself, of his own accord," she 
went on to say, " who spoke of it, and dropped 
hints about her being alluded to." 

It is a remarkable thing that, whatever the 
delinquency into which people fall, it is sure to 
bring with it the sin of lying. Through God's 
mercy, this is a sin to which I have not much 
natural tendency ; but there have been occasions, 
and this was one, in which there seemed no way 
out of a difficulty but by going very close if not 
directly into it. I did not, however, say in so 
many words that she had heard the whole of the 
lines. I palliated, and trimmed with the query 
of, " Why should you think I would deceive you ? " 
and the like equivocations; which, at the same 
time that they gave evidently no satisfaction to 
her, made me inwardly shrink with the conscious- 
ness of the low and contemptible part I was 
acting, both by her and by myself. 

The greater part of a fortnight had elapsed 
since the sending of this hateful valentine, (for I 
had got most thoroughly to detest it, and fervently 



196 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

to wish it had never been sent,) when Fanny one 
morning presented herself at my house to ask, 
she said, " a great favour of me/' 

" What is it ? " 

" Only that you will comply with a request 
I have to make; which is, that you will allow 
Mr Halford to show me the valentine ; for he 
says that, provided you agree to it, he has no 
objection to doing so. But he will not do it 
without your permission." 

The malice of the man, and the perfidy of 
Fanny, which occasioned it, — for well assured was 
I that it was, as Sarah Walton said, by blinking, 
or winking, or some dumb show or another, that 
she had informed him that I was the author of 
the valentine, — so wholly overcame me, that I 
replied to her by saying, " I don't care what he 
does with it. He may read it to you, or at the 
Market-cross, if he likes." 

She took not the slightest notice of the anger 
with which I spoke ; but, of course, accepting it 
as a compliance with her request, she went away. 

I went off immediately to the Walton girls, 
to tell them the crisis to which the affair 



A Recoi'd of Facts and Feelings. 197 

was brought ; and to hear what they thought 
about it. 

They scarcely thought that he would show the 
lines to Fanny. He would not mind what pain 
he might bring upon me by doing so ; but he 
would hardly like to wound her feelings by 
showing her a portrait of herself drawn in such 
humiliating colours. 

" Oh no, no," Martha said. " It is only to 
make you tremble by showing you that you are 
in his power, that he has set this goosey girl to 
ask your leave for his showing it. He cannot do 
so base a thing." 

I was not quite so sure of this. There was an 
immense heap of self-esteem, and such a moun- 
tain of pride in the man, that I could imagine 
him capable of going to any length in resenting 
such an attack upon his dignity as I had made. 
There was nothing for it but to hope he would 
refrain, when it came to the point, from revenging 
himself after the way indicated. 

I passed a very anxious night, and that I might 
not dwell any longer than I needs must, under 
the harrow of suspense, I determined, as soon as 



198 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

I had breakfasted, to call upon Fanny, and know 
the upshot. That she would veil the ungracious 
way in which I yielded assent to Halford's doing 
as he liked, I well knew; and that she would 
simply say that I gave him leave to show her 
the valentine. It was equally certain to me 
that she would lose no time in doing so ; and 
that she would have sent and invited him to 
drink tea the evening before. By this morning, 
then, the worst would have been done that he 
had the power to do ; and I would go and take 
the bull by the horns and see what came of it. 

On asking the servant if Miss Bird was at 
home, she said she was. " But I don't think she 
will be able to see you, ma'am," she added, with 
some hesitation, but with something in her man- 
ner which led me to think that she had received 
orders not to admit me if I called. It might 
be so ; and if Halford had showed Fanny the 
letter, it was only fit that it should be so. But 
be it how it might, I was not going to turn 
away from that house till I had ascertained what 
had passed. I am a very frail and undisciplined 
creature, but I possess a power of rising to the 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 199 

occasion, which generally carries me through the 
exigencies which befall me ; especially when, as 
now, they are such as I have brought upon my- 
self. 

" Could I speak with Mrs Bird ? " I said. 

She did not know ; but if I would walk in 
she would see ; and she showed me into the 
parlour, which was empty. 

I may here say a few words relative to Fanny's 
parents, of whom I have hitherto had no occa- 
sion to make mention. Mr Bird was a medical 
man by profession, and an alderman of the cor- 
poration, and a magistrate by station. He was 
old, and feeble, and trifling in mind and manner ; 
and nobody seemed to make much account of 
him, nor he of them. He passed the chief of 
his time in a room called his study, where he 
transacted his judicial business, and saw such 
patients as came to consult him ; and now and 
then varied the scene by wandering into the 
parlour, and looking out of the window, or 
stirring the fire, and after a few minutes' stay, 
going back again to his own apartment. Mrs 
Bird was not of much more importance in her 



200 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

sphere. She was advanced in years, and very 
feeble in health, being sometimes confined to 
her room for weeks together with severe attacks 
of chronic rheumatism. But when she was about, 
and occupied her place in the parlour, she was 
quiet and kind in her manner, and what might 
be called a nice little old lady ; more, however, 
from her not being in anybody's way, and never 
saying or doing anything to give offence, than 
from any capability she possessed of being an 
acquisition in the way of talent or talk, for she 
was very weak in mind, and, like her daughter 
Fanny, felt her safest position to be that of 
silence. 

If the world had been sought for a person the 
least likely in the position of mistress of a house- 
hold to inspire a sentiment of fear, Mrs Bird was 
that person. Yet such was the sense I had of her 
superiority at that moment to myself, that I in- 
wardly quailed, when, after some time had elapsed, 
she came into the room. 

" What was it that you wished to say to me Miss 

K ? " she said, with a very grave, but not an 

angry manner of speaking. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 201 

" I wish, ma'am, to know if Mr Halford has 
shown the valentine to Fanny ? ; ' 

" He has. We have all seen it." " Then he is a 
villain/' I replied. " I don't think so," she said ; 
" I think there are those who have acted much 
worse than him." " Oh, Mrs Bird," I said, " you 
don't know how basely, — how cruelly that man 
has acted by me." 

" Let him have acted how he might," she said ; 

" they were not your friends, Miss K , that put 

you upon this way of revenging yourself." I knew 
that this remark glanced at the Waltons, who 
Fanny would suspect of aiding me in the matter. 
" No one put me upon it/' I said. " It was all my 
own doing-— -and deeply I regret it — more par- 
ticularly as it concerns Miss Bird." 

" I think you have cause to do so," she replied ; 

."for Fanny did not deserve to be so spoken of. 

She is not clever like you ; — but she loved you, 

Miss K ." Here the poor old lady's emotion 

stopped her saying more. 

Willingly would I have knelt at her feet and 
acknowledged my great transgression ; — but I felt 
that it could never be sufficiently forgotten to ad- 



202 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

mit of the continuance of our acquaintance. Had I 
had any doubt on this point, she settled it by say- 
ing-, " Of course there can be no further acquaintance 
between us. Neither Mr Bird nor myself could 
have any pleasure in receiving at our house a 
person who has spoken as you have of our poor 
girl." * 

" Certainly not," I replied — " I could not expect 
it ; " and I rose to depart, which I did w 7 ith a slight 
bend, — which she as slightly returned. 

I was passing through the hall to the house 
door, when I perceived Fanny coming down the 
stairs, as if she had been watching for my depart- 
ure. She was in tears, — but hastily came to me, 

* I am happy to be able to state that after the lapse of a year or 
so, my sincere penitence for my fault was fully accepted by Mr 
and Mrs Bird, as well as it had from the first been by Fanny. 
She continued on terms of intimacy with me to the time of her 
death. This event occurred under very melancholy circumstances 
in the winter of 1829. She had for some months been subject to 
pain in the chest, which she treated lightly, as thinking it arose from 
indigestion only ; whereas it turned out to be heart disease. She 
had been spending the day with me, and the person who came to 
attend her home with a lantern having arrived, she prepared to go, 
but the night being bitterly cold, I wished her to let me send for a 
fly, especially as she felt the pain coming on ; but she would not 
agree to it. She was only able to reach the house of a physician, 
where she went in for medical help, and almost immediately she 
entered his consulting room, she fell down and expired. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 203 

and extended her arms as if for a last farewell. 
I pressed her to my heart, and uttered the words, 
" Do forgive me." She answered only by returning 
my embrace, and then hastened up-stairs as if 
afraid of being seen talking to me. 

I had promised the Waltons to call and let them 
know the result of my visit ; so to their house I 
now bent my way ; so broken, so humbled, that it 
was with any feeling but that of indignation that 
my mind was filled. 

It was not wanting on their part. They heaped 
the heaviest terms of disgust upon what Martha 
called " such a consummate scoundrel." 

" You must get this letter away from him," she 
said, " or he will show it half over the place, and 
who knows but that it may come to your father's 
ears. 

She could not have suggested anything so cal- 
culated to fill me with dismay ; for what his wrath 
would be, what the boiling rage of his Irish 
blood, to think that a daughter of his should pelt 
a scurrilous ballad (as he would call it) at the 
head of a gentleman of the university, because he 
would not marry her, — I could only too well 



204 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

imagine, as well as the possibility of its exas- 
perating me by its exhibition, in my present 
state of mind, to take the step of running away 
from home, and trying to support myself by the 
exercise of my talents elsewhere ; a step which 
only my love for my mother had yet hindered my 
taking. I was willing, therefore, to get back this 
hateful transcript if possible ; but how was it to 
be done ? 

After a little consideration, she said that she 
saw a way of setting about it, and that imme- 
diately. Their father was out of town, and no one 
was in the counting-house at the yard but their 
brother. They could easily get him to vacate it, 
and I might write and ask Halford to come to me 
there as I had a matter of great importance to 
speak to him upon. 

It was a strange, wild proposal ; but my affairs 
were in such a chaotic and terrible state, that I was 
ready to do anything that might tend to compose 
them. So I consented to her suggestion, and we 
all repaired to the mercantile premises, which 
were very near my father's house, and in part be- 
longed to him. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 205 

Their brother, who, on the score of music, was 
an 'ally of mine, readily betook himself to some 
other part of the premises, and left the counting- 
house at our disposal. I sat down there and 
wrote these words : — 

" I wish very much to speak with you now. 
Will you at this moment come to my father's gate, 
where you will find " M. A. K." . 

I said nothing about Mr Walton's yard or 
counting-house, inasmuch as I was certain that to 
neither of those places would he resort ; nor was 
there any need ; for I could meet him as well at 
the place appointed, which was close at hand. 
To be sure there was the hazard of my father com- 
ing in, or going out of the gate ; but if this had 
happened, Halford in former times had been a 
visitor at our house, though not an intimate one, 
nor yet a much-liked one by my father or mother; 
and now, from his having so long ceased to call on 
them, regarded as an uncivil, disagreeable person. 
Still, if my father had come upon us, it might have 
seemed that Halford was going to repair his past 
neglect by a morning "call. I showed my note to 



206 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

the Waltons, and said that I thought it best to 
propose my own door for a place of meeting ; to 
which they agreed. I had so little to say to him, 
I observed, that a walk down the street would 
suffice for it ; and if he did come, I should see him 
approaching, and without his coming to my house 
at all, or going into the counting-house, the matter 
might be accomplished. 

The note was sent by one of the boys in the 
yard with strict orders to bring it back, if Mr 
Halford were not in his rooms. But if he were, to 
wait for an answer. 

The entrance to the yard commanded an exten- 
sive view of the street by which the boy was to 
return, and the two girls and I stood at it to 
watch for his coming. It was not long before we 
saw him, with a note in his hand, which he gave to 
Martha, (supposing her the person addressed, from 
her giving him his directions,) and which she 
handed to me. I have a distinct recollection that 
these were its contents : — 

" I see no good that is to be the result of a per- 
sonal interview, when a letter will answer the 



A Record of Fads and Feelings. 207 

purpose ; to which, if you address me in proper 
language, I may be disposed to attend. — H. H." 

I handed it without speaking to Martha, over 
whose shoulder Sarah read it. " Villain/' — 
"wretch," and the like epithets, bespoke the sen- 
timents it excited ; but I had neither words, nor 
thoughts, to express. I was, as if I had been 
beaten till the sense of feeling was gone out of me, 
and like one that only wanted to find a place to 
lie down in, and rest, — or die, — I said I would go 
home and get a little quiet ; and by and by, I 
would write and ask him to return me the letter. 
They expressed all that was sympathising and 
affectionate, and we parted, — Martha begging me 
to be extremely careful what I said to him, and to 
let it be in as few words as possible. There was 
no fear, I told her, of my saying anything more to 
him than was absolutely necessary. 

Mr Cecil remarks that a " stubborn and rebel- 
lious mind in a Christian must be kept low by 
sharp and trying dispensations. The language of 
God, in His providences to such a one, is, I will 
not wholly hide my face from thee. Thou shalt 



208 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

sometimes meet with me ; but it will be in a dark 
night, and in a storm." * 

Many such dark and stormy nights have I ex- 
perienced ; but this was the first that had over- 
taken me as yet, and assuredly, it brought with it 
an inward strength and guidance quite new to me. 

I was aware, as I have remarked, that I had a 
power in me that enabled me to rise to the occa- 
sion ; but it was of a totally different character 
from that which now sustained me. The power 
that nature had bestowed upon me was that of 
energy, which seemed to make me capable of 
going through anything and everything that I 
was required to undertake This, under the tech- 
nical name of " destructiveness," was illustrated 
by a phrenologist, who examined my head, and 
wrote me the result in these words : — 

" Destructiveness, unusually large. Had Miss 

K been of the other sex, she must have been 

a soldier, and a very courageous one." 

But it was not by the energy of my nature, nor 
anything else that was in me, but the deep devo- 
tional sentiment, that, with my mortal members, 

* "Remains of Rev. R. Cecil' 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 209 

" day by day was fashioned, when, as yet, there 
was none of them." It was by this, the gift of 
God to a helpless creature, whom His Omniscience 
foresaw would so often, and so greatly need its 
aid, that my soul was at this time calmed and 
fitted to go through with the painful difficulty of 
addressing Halford properly. 

The impression or direction on my mind after 
I returned home, was to be still for the rest of the 
day, and not to attempt to write to him till I had 
been composed by a night's rest. 

On the following day, I felt myself in a frame 
of mind to express what I wished to say to him, 
as it became me to say it — that is to say, without 
a particle of anger, but with a sense of injury 
which would most effectually vindicate its justice, 
by being developed in the fewest and most tem- 
perate words that I could use. I perfectly remem- 
ber them ; and they were as follows : — 

" In acknowledging to you, Mr Halford, that I 

am the author of the letter you have received, I, 

at the same time, "make a request that you will 

return it to me, as it can now have no further 

O 



2 1 o The Solace of a Solitaire : 

purpose to serve. With respect to the wound you 
have inflicted upon Miss Bird, I can only say, that 
as it was aimed at me, it would have been better if 
it had come from any hand but yours. 

"M. A. K." 

I received a reply in the course of the follow- 
ing day, in these words : — 

" Mr Halford presents his respectful compli- 
ments to Miss K , and much regrets that a 

severe headache prevents him to-day from com- 
plying with her request ; which he can never 
cease to lament had not been preferred sooner." 

On the following evening, as I was making tea, 
my father and mother only being present, an old 
confidential servant put her head in at the door, 
and said, " You are wanted, Miss, if you please." 

As soon as I got into the kitchen, which opened 
upon the court-yard in which our house stood, 
she said, in a whisper, " Mr Halford is at the 
kitchen door, and wishes to speak with you." 

If he had fixed upon a time in the whole day, 
which was the most unfavourable for an interview, 
this was it ; for my father would soon be out of 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 2 1 1 

patience at my leaving my duty as tea-maker ; 
and to add to the probability of his sending to 
desire me to come back and finish my business, 
a little beast of a dog I had, set up such a barking, 
that I expected nothing else every moment, but 
that my father would bodily come forth to know 
what was going on. 

It was with as much trepidation on this account 
as from the presence of Halford, that, without 
speaking, — and I may say almost without seeing 
him, for in the obscure light of a March evening 
I could not discern his features, — I took the 
letter he extended to me, and hurried into the 
house. Something he said in a low and agitated 
tone, but I could not tell what. I heard nothing, 
I saw nothing, I thought of nothing, but getting 
back as fast as I could into the parlour ; and here 
was the end of the story of the valentine. I 
ought to state, that the solution of Halford's 
conduct in withdrawing so abruptly, and, as it 
seemed, so dishonourably, from my acquaintance, 
was shortly found in his leaving college, and 
marrying a lady of fortune, to whom he had been 
long engaged. 



2 1 2 The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 

That he had suffered his affections to wander 
for a time from her and to settle upon me, I 
cannot doubt ; nor that it was a sense of the 
danger of again becoming unfaithful to her, that 
occasioned his strict avoidance of me after his 
return to college. The intercourse, which during 
the long vacation had restored him to his affec- 
tion for his betrothed, had also, no doubt, awak- 
ened him to the wrong he had done her, in 
suffering himself to love any one else. The last 
poor woman he loved would, to be sure, have 
reason to think herself but hardly dealt with. 
But as one of them must be a victim, it seemed 
but fair that it should be her who had the least 
claim to be spared. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

r I ^HESE are simple facts; circumstances that 
once had actual occurrence in my history ; 
and that caused me the most severe suffering. 
It is no dream that I have been relating. But 
what are the facts, and what is the suffering 
which the lapse of more than fifty years does 
not seem to transmute into a vision of the night ? 

Mr Emerson, in his chapter on Illusions,* has 
a striking passage illustrative of the combat and 
the close of human strife and struggle with the 
events and circumstances of life; though I should 
like it better if it had less of a pagan and poeti- 
cal, and more of the Christian character in it. 
" There is no chance and no anarchy in the 
universe/' he says. " All is system and gradation. 
Every god is there sitting in his sphere. The 
young mortal enters the hall of the firmament : 
there is he alone with them alone ; they pouring 

* " Conduct of Life," p. 202. 



2 r4 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

on him benedictions and gifts, and beckoning him 
up to their thrones. On the instant, and inces- 
santly, fall snow-storms of illusions. He fancies 
himself in a vast crowd, which sways this way 
and that, and whose movement and doings he 
must obey; he fancies himself poor, orphaned, 
insignificant. The mad crowd drives hither and 
thither ; now furiously commanding this thing to 
be done, now that. Who is he that he should 
resist their will, and think or act for himself? 
Every moment new changes and new showers of 
deceptions to baffle and distract him. And when, 
by and by, the air clears for an instant, and the 
cloud lifts a little, there are the gods still sitting 
around him, on their thrones — they alone with 
him alone." A comment in pencil which I find 
at the end of this passage observes : — " But why 
the heathenish term of ' the gods ' ? Why not 
the one true God, — that Alone of which Plotinus 
speaks as the soul's divine object, and whose 
prayer he sublimely terms, 'a flight of the alone 
to the Alone ' ? " 

It is a preciously true and consoling word of 
Scripture which says, " Thou shalt forget thy 






A Record of Facts and Feelings. 2 1 5 

misery, and remember it as waters that pass 
away." * " Oh consider," says an old and deeply 
experienced minister of God, in writing to a sorely 
exercised soul, — " consider that word which says 
of the Lord, that ' His fire is in Zion, and His 
furnace at Jerusalem.' And how doth He purify 
the soul of man but by casting it into the furnace 
of affliction ? There the deep, sore, distressing 
anguish finds out both the seed and the chaff; 
purifying the pure gold, and consuming the dross ; 
and after that, a quiet state is witnessed, and the 
quiet fruit of righteousness is brought forth by the 
searching and consuming nature and operation of 
the fire." And thus it is that misery is only re- 
membered as " waters that pass away ; " — waters 
which, as the same old writer from whom I have 
made the above quotation observes, are that vale 
of tears which it is good for the soul to pass 
through ; since by virtue of them the corruptible 
part is day by day washed away. It was so, I 
trust, with me. In a small measure — a very small 
one, for it was yet but " the day of small things " f 

* Job vi. 15. 

f " Who hath despised the day of small things ? " (Zech. iv. io.) 



2 1 6 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

with me — I think I may venture to say, that the 
trial through which I had passed, exercised a 
beneficial effect upon me. I became a reader of 
more profitable books, which I might be said to 
study, as well as to peruse ; for I was in the habit 
of making frequent and long extracts from such 
parts of them as applied to the practice of self- 
control, and the mental discipline which recent 
experience taught me to perceive how greatly I 
needed, and of which I had seen, and been taught 
so little, by those who had the guardianship of 
my youth. 

Assuredly, if any one more than another has 
cause to say with David, " O God, thou hast 
taught me from my youth," * I am that per- 
son ; for, by means of books that have fallen 
in my way, as well as by the ministry of events, 
which are sermons in themselves, I have received 
lessons which I could never regard as any other 
than the teaching of God. . 

Amongst the books which at that time were of 
the greatest service to me, was Adam Smith's 
"Theory of Moral Sentiments," which my good 

* Psalm vii. 1 7. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 2 1 7 

friend Professor Smyth put into my hands. In 
that work the author's favourite doctrine of, "The 
man within the breast]' very deeply and profitably 
impressed me, by making me understand the 
priceless value of possessing, and of obeying, an 
interior Guide whose dictates were infallible. In 
after years, this view of an inward and spiritual 
instructor, was opened up to me in the writings of 
the mystics, with far greater unction than by Adam 
Smith. In the pages of the last writer, it is 
discussed on the ground of philosophy ; but in 
those of the mystics, it is exhibited for what it 
actually is ; and therefore, as no other than the 
immediate revelation of the Spirit of God. Never- 
theless, it is worthy of remark, that in the writings 
of the philosopher and the mystics, it is the same 
divine truth which both of them are engaged in 
discussing. Only, with the one it is "the man 
within the breast," that designates this holy 
oracle ; and with the other, it is what the apostle 
expresses as " Christ in you, the hope of glory." 

In the " Phcedo " of Plato, accompanied by a 
comment of Dr Whewell's, there is a passage 
which so perfectly illustrates what I am saying, 



2 1 8 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

that I will here give a place to both the one and 
the other — and from that in the " Phoedo " first : — 
"The soul is made to wander and err, and 
become giddy, as if intoxicated, because it is 
brought into contact with, and disturbed by, 
changing and inconstant things. * But when it 
contemplates objects by means of itself alone, 
[that is to say, by the light of the holy Spirit, or, 
as Smith calls it, ' the man within the breast,'] it is 
drawn towards whatever is pure, and unchangeably 
eternal ; and as related to the immortal things, it 
remains ever with them. When it is given up to 
itself, [or this man within the breast,] its wander- 
ings end ; because it is disturbed by nothing else, 
and therefore it becomes uniform and steady in its 
objects ; and this condition we call wisdom." f 

* "They also have erred through wine, and through strong 
drink are out of the way : the priest and the prophet have erred 
through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out 
of the way through strong drink ; they err in vision, they stumble 
in judgment," (Isa. xxviii 7.) Surely, in every newspaper of every 
day, we may see this spiritual intoxication illustrated. People " err 
in vision, and stumble in judgment," through besotting themselves, 
by drinking of that Babylonish cup, " that made all the earth 
drunken : the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the 
nations are mad," (Jer. li. 7.) 

t " Platonic Dialogues," by Dr Whewell, vol. i. p. 388. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 219 

On the sentiments thus propounded, Dr Whewell 
observes : — 

" Such teachers have proceeded from a nation of 
whom Plato probably never heard. The Hebrew 
disciples of a far greater teacher, referred to other 
proofs than Socrates here expounds. Yet some of 
them, as Paul of Tarsus, did not disdain to 
illustrate the subject, by references to speculations 
of the Greeks ; and, in addressing the Athenians 
four hundred years after Plato, referred to con- 
victions of natural religion, such as Socrates and 
his disciples had cherished." 

But while I am thus gravely discoursing of the 
excellent books to which I gave my attention, 
after the mental discipline to which I had been 
recently subjected, — I shall, doubtless, be reminded 
that, upon my own showing, the sharp lesson I 
had received, and the philosophy I studied, did 
not suffice to prevent my once more becoming 
the victim of misplaced affections. It is true that 
the fault and misfortune of permitting my mind 
to wander into a hopeless, and consequently, an 
imprudent attachment, again overtook me ; for, 
you may believe me when I say, that I did not 



2 20 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

seek it. It stole upon me unawares ; and no one 
could reprove me more severely than I reproved 
myself, for being thus unguardedly entangled in a 
snare that had been so dangerous, and from which 
I had been delivered, as Job says, "by the skin of 
my teeth." 

The simple truth is, that there is a necessity in 
the nature of woman, that she should love some- 
thing;. Hence, how common it is, when doomed 
to a life of what is by courtesy termed "single 
blessedness," for her to gather about her, dogs, 
cats, birds, — anything, in short, that may receive 
that current of her affections, which denied to run 
in its proper channel of connubial and parental 
attachment, must somewhere, and in some way, 
find a vent, though it be only in this poor way of 
expending itself. I am never without a cat ; 
which, being a stay-at-home, quiet sort of animal, 
is more especially adapted for being the recipient 
of an aged spinster's regard. One does not, how- 
ever, settle down to this sort of love, in early life ; 
and it was yet early life with me, when I fell 
into intimate association with a person of very 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 221 

engaging manners, and a most accomplished 
mind. 

When a woman's heart is disengaged, (and you 
may rely upon it, I made it my business as 
speedily as I could, to disengage mine from the 
thraldom into which it had been betrayed,) I do 
not believe that it is possible for her to be in 
habits of friendship with a man to whose superi- 
ority of mind she looks up for the edification of 
her own, without becoming attached to him with 
more or less of the passion of love. Especially is 
such a result to be expected, when her domestic 
life is far from being the scene of peace and 
comfort, which it is needful for human happiness 
that it should be ; and more particularly for that 
of woman, whose lot, much more than that of 
man, constrains her to dwell at home. 

Upon one plea or another, men can always get 
away from domestic discomfort ; but women have 
no alternative, but to remain in its hard grasp, and 
bear the pressure as best they may. 

It was a vast help to my enduring it, that I had 
elsewhere a source of consolation ; though it had 



222 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

its alloy, as every human spring of comfort has. 
Here it was not so much found in the hopeless- 
ness, as in the folly of the feelings it awakened — 
the captious and totally unreasonable expectation 
of being considered first and foremost upon all 
occasions, which usually gives such an exacting 
character to the attachment of a sensitive woman, 
— and of which, at the very time that I indulged 
it, I felt ashamed, was of itself a species of misery; 
— which, as very often tending, by the ill-humour 
and caprice it occasioned, to lower me in the 
estimation of the very person I most wished to 
please, was sometimes increased to a degree of 
remorse that was agonising. For what sentiment 
of the soul is there that causes such an intensity 
of anguish as remorse ? 

" Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, 
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still." 

I remember in a charming little tale by Mrs 
Inchbald,* one of her chapters begins with some 
such sentence as this. As I quote from memory, 
I do not pretend to give it verbatim, but the sum 
and substance of it runs in this wise : — 

* " Nature and Art." 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 223 

" Reader, whatever your sins and sorrows, — what- 
ever your trials, — kneel down and bless God, if you 
have not to add to them the anguish of remorse." 

There is certainly no distress so piercing as the 
consciousness of having acted unworthily, — even 
when, as, happily in the present case, the mis- 
conduct is rather the result of excessive sensibility 
than defect of principle. Well has Rousseau said, 
" Que c'est un fatal present du ciel, une ame 
sensible!" Yet, accompanied as this episode in 
my history was by error and by pain, it was of 
inestimable value in promoting in me a deep and 
abiding sense of religion. I turned to no earthly 
source, — no " broken cisterns that could hold no 
water," — for the relief I needed. It was not in 
my nature to do so, but rather to carry my case 
of suffering to the physician of value, even to Him 
of whom the prophet so touchingly testifies, when 
he says, " O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, the 
soul in anguish, the troubled spirit, crieth unto 
thee."* Truly can I set to my seal that this 
divine Helper did " know my soul in adversities," 
and, in the course of His providence, by means 

* Baruch, (Apocrypha,) iii. I. 



224 The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 

of these very things that seemed as hindrances, 
fulfilled that precious word of promise, " Behold, I 
will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, 
and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace 

and truth."* 

* Jeremiah xxxiii. 6. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

MAY now take leave of the digression into 
personal details wherein I have been so long 
wandering, and return to the impressions of the 
present day and hour, with which, when I com- 
menced this record, it was my purpose to fill it. 

A circumstance that occurred to-day, of no 
importance in itself, but as the means of exciting 
a new and curious feeling in my mind, may be 
worth alluding to. A pamphlet was sent me from 
one of the Public Offices, containing a list of the 
surviving nominees (of which I am one) of a 
Government Tontine that was instituted in the 
year 1 790 ; and in which my father took a share 
for each of his children, of which I was the 
youngest, and at that time an infant of a few 
months old. 

On looking it over, I found amongst the sur- 

P 



226 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

vivors the names of two women, each past eighty, 
who were my school-fellows at the boarding-school 
in Norfolk, to which I was sent before I was nine 
years old ; that is to say, about seventy years 
ago. 

" Dear me ! are they still alive ?" was the thought 
that first crossed my mind ; soon, however, cor- 
rected by another, which reminded me that they 
might as well say the same of me ; since, according 
to the old proverb, it might be said of us all, " that 
when one died of old age, the other might quake 
with fear." 

It was one of the most curious of sensations this 
thinking how we should, perhaps, all be wondering 
to find each other living. To make a query upon 
such a point seemed so strange ! I remembered 
then a little circumstance to which at the time 
(some forty, or perhaps fifty years ago) I paid 
scarcely any attention, as not perceiving the point 
of it. This was Professor Smyth's telling me that, 
in paying a visit to Mrs Barbauld, she had told 
him how curiously she felt, on reading lately an 
American review in which her name was men- 
tioned, and a note appended, which stated that 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 227 

" we do not know if this venerable lady is still 
living." 

It is with some reason that Young has remarked 
that— 

" All men think all men mortal but themselves." 

It was not only on this ground that the pamphlet 
brought by to-day's post was suggestive to me ; 
for it also brought before the view of my mind 
the recollection of my juvenile companions, whom 
I had not seen certainly for sixty-six years, with a 
vividness of delineation which seemed to corro- 
borate a remark I have somewhere met with, 
which asserts that " nothing dies in the storehouse 
of memory ; but that whatever once had a being 
there, remains for ever immovable and unaltered." 
It seemed so in the present instance ; for not 
only did the forms and faces of my two school- 
fellows return to my " mind's eye," but other 
images came before it that had been forgotten for 
as long a time. The governess, the teachers, the 
servants of the house, the grounds where we walked, 
the church we attended, and the queer snuffling old 
parson who always, after giving out his text, used 



228 The Solace of a Solitaire ; 

to say a few words respecting it, much after the 
fashion in which the heading of a chapter gives its 
contents ; and then invariably went on with ob- 
serving, " A nd this, if you please, shall be the subject 
of the following discourse" All this, as clean for- 
gotten by me as if it had never existed, started 
into life as by the wand of a magician. 

I remained some time engaged in meditating, 
not on the sublunary reflections to which these 
images of the past gave birth, but on an idea which 
they revived, and which it is always pleasant to 
me to entertain. This is a belief that the past 
scenes and circumstances of our individual lives, 
with all their relations to our experience, and their 
bearings upon our conduct and its consequences, 
will, in another phase of our being, be seen by us 
at a glance, just as in looking at a picture we take 
in at once — all its details. It would seem that 
this is not altogether a fanciful idea, since it 
is reported of persons who, by drowning, have 
been brought to the point of death, and after- 
wards restored, that they have said that the last 
remembrance of their consciousness was, that 
they had a sight and sense in the glance of a 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 229 

moment, of every circumstance of their whole 
past life. 

There is a passage in a work of Fenelon's which 
has a bearing on this subject. 

" My brain/' he says, " is like a closet full of 
pictures. I distinctly remember that I have 
known, what I do not know at present ; I re- 
member my very oblivion. I call to mind the 
pictures, or images of every person in every period 
of my life wherein I have seen them formerly ; 
and thus, the same person passes several times in 
my head. At first, I see a child ; then a young, 
and afterwards an old man. I place wrinkles on 
the same face, in which on the other side, I see 
the tender graces of infancy. I join what subsists 
no more, with that which exists now ; and, 
without confounding these extremes, I preserve 
I know not what ; but which by turns, is all that 
I have seen since I came into the world."* 

It seems to me that all that can be gathered 
from contemplating the marvels amidst which we 
"live, and move, and have our being," is, as Mr 

* "On the Existence of God," p. 96. English edition, 1720. 
Taylor, at the Ship, Paternoster Row. 



230 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

Emerson beautifully expresses it, that " we lie in 
the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us 
organs of its activity, and receivers of its truth. 
When we discern justice, when we discern truth, 
we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage 
to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we 
seek to pry into the soul that causes — all 
metaphysics, all philosophy is at fault." * 

From wondering that my old school-comrades 
were still in this world, I passed into speculations 
whether they were thinking about another ; into 
which they, as well as myself, must, in the course 
of nature, shortly pass. I seemed to have for- 
gotten, or to have mistaken, that I was as near to 
death as themselves, in the surprise with which I 
found that they were yet living ; perhaps, I might 
be mistaken also, in thinking that I was con- 
templating, as constantly, and as steadily as I 
supposed I was, the near approach of my own 
decease ? 

My thought on this query is, " that I must be 
my own dupe — and a very foolish one, if I am 
thus misled." 

* Essay on Self-Reliance. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 2 3 1 

A passage in one of Mr Emerson's essays then 
came to my mind ; not altogether consolatory, 
though somewhat encouraging: — " It would be 
hard," he says, " to put more mental and moral 
philosophy, than the Persians have thrown into a 
sentence : — 

" ' Fool'd thou must be, though wisest of the wise ; 
Then be the fool of virtue, not of vice.' " * 

" Fooled I may be," I said to myself, " and 
doubtless am, in many ways ; but I am not fool 
enough, on the brink of fourscore, to put from me 
the nearness in which I stand to the event of my 
own death. I know that I think of nothing else, 
as the event to which I have to look forward ; and 
for which it is as much the dictate of common sense 
to be prepared, as it would be to have my clothes 
packed up and ready, if I were going to take a 
long journey, on a long absence, to-morrow." 

No kind of reading is so interesting to me, as 
that which relates to death-beds. The first thing 
I do, when a book of the biography of those who 
are deceased is put into my hands, is to turn to 
the part which gives an account of their last 
* " Conduct of Life, p. 202." 



232 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

hours ; and I do this with the personal interest in 
the matter with which one that was about to 
travel on a dreary road, beset with strange 
mysteries, and unknown circumstances, would 
eagerly seek for the experience of those who have 
travelled that way. And I usually feel that 
some sense of encouragement accompanies these 
studies ; something which assures me that " To 
die is to begin to live. It is to end an old, 
stale, weary work, and to commence a newer, and 
a better." * 

It is sweet to me to believe, that, as it is stated 
in a book I was reading this morning before I 
rose, that "in the history of pious men, in 
moments of pain and affliction, — the external 
world disappeared, and they plunged into the 
profoundest depths of their innermost life." An 
instance is then related — 

" It was in the year 1461, when the Hussites were 
undergoing a cruel persecution, that a pious man 
at Prague, called Georginus, who was brought to 
the rack, and stretched upon it, became in an 
extraordinary manner insensible to pain ; and at 
* Beaumont and Fletcher. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 2 



00 



length, seeming to be lifeless, he was taken up 
and left for dead. After some time he came to 
himself; and wondered what occasioned the pain 
he felt. On beholding his wounds, and the tools 
of the executioner, he remembered what had 
happened, and related a dream which he had 
during his torture. ' 1 thought/ said he, ' that 
I was in a green and beautiful meadow, in the 
midst of which stood a tree loaded with fruit ; and 
on the tree were perched many birds, who ate of 
the fruit and sang melodiously. And amongst 
the birds I beheld a youth, who, with a small rod, 
appeared to regulate their movements, that none 
should go too far, or get out of his place.' M 

There seemed to me something sweet and 
beautiful in this ; regarding it as a symbol, in the 
birds, of the thoughts of the heart, feeding upon 
truth ; and watched over, and checked by the 
spirit of truth, when in danger of forsaking their 
right provender. But to return to the subject we 
were upon. 

I admit, that whatever the preparation of 
heart we may make, and with all the strength 
with which we may try to fortify our minds 



234 T? ie Solace of a Solitaire ; 

respecting death, there is somewhat in the 
amazing transit we have to make, which cannot 
be otherwise than appalling to the natural mind, 
and which causes it, as by an instinct, to recoil 
from it as something inconceivable ; something 
with which it seems surprising that we should 
have a real, close, actual, personal concern ! 
Even in the case of those who might be supposed 
habitually to regard it, as not merely that with 
which their chief business lies ; but as an object 
of desire, inasmuch as they are ever setting before 
their fellow-creatures in their prescribed mission 
as teachers, the blessedness of the righteous in 
the world to come, and the paramount duty of 
living for that world ; even in the case of these 
persons, the presence of death often comes 
before them as a surprise, — perhaps, as a 
shock. 

I was struck with an instance of this only a night 
or two ago, in reading the life of the Rev. Henry 
Venn Elliott. Referring to his busy ministrations 
and their sudden ending, " Take notice," he said, 
" that after so long and active a ministry, the 
manner in which the Lord's termination of it came 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 235 

upon me was like a thunderbolt/' * But there are 
exceptions to this sense of surprise, and to the 
feeling of recoil of which I have spoken, as the 
instinct of nature at the thought of death. The 
natural is sometimes counteracted by the pre- 
dominance of the supernatural at this great crisis. 
It was my privilege to know two saints of God 
whose last hours— and last years, I may say — 
were seasons of unintermitting joy at the prospect 
of their departure from this scene of sorrow. I do 
not remember ever leaving the company of either 
of these women, without feeling the better for 
having been with them. On quitting the presence 
of one of them but a few days before she died, 
after staying but a very short time, as I perceived 
that she was in pain, " My dear," she said, " I 
must not move so much as my little finger ; " 
meaning that it was only by strict obedience to 
the holy command, " Be still, and know that I am 
God," that she found strength to support her 
trial. These were the last words I heard her 
utter ; and I regard them as a precious legacy 

* " Life of the Rev. Henry Venn Elliott," by Josiah Bateman, 
M.A., p. 364. 



236 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

of divine counsel to one whose poverty of self- 
control needed that she should be thus enriched. 
" Oh how sweet it is to die! — how very sweet!" 
she said, a few hours before her release. With 
respect to the other dear friend, her attendant 
told me that her joy at the approach of death was 
not to be expressed. " Longing for the time/' was 
the young woman's description respecting the 
state of mind of her mistress, and in the case of 
both these individuals, though great sufferers on 
the physical side of their being, it was no feeling 
of weariness at the length and severity of their 
bodily trial that caused their yearning for deliver- 
ance ; but it was an acquaintance with the nature 
of God as Love, — as the source and centre of the 
perfection of beauty, wisdom, and goodness, — 
which occasioned in both of them a longing which 
is best expressed in the words of the Psalmist, 
wherein he says, " As the hart panteth after the 
waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O 
God." " My soul thirsteth for God, for the living 
God : when shall I come and appear before God ? " 
Sweet are these lines by Adelaide Proctor, gone 
also to her rest : — 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 2 37 

" Why should'st thou fear the beautiful angel Death, 
Who waits thee at the portals of the skies, 
Ready to kiss away thy struggling breath, 
Ready with gentle hand to close thy eyes. 

" Oh what were life, if life were all ? Thine eyes 
Are blinded by their tears ; — or thou wouldst see 
Thy treasures wait thee in the far-off skies, 

And Death, thy friend, will give them all to thee." 

If amongst my readers there are those who take 
as deep an interest as I do in anecdotes that tes- 
tify of happiness in a dying hour, they will not 
reckon me tedious if I prolong the subject with 
transcribing from a book I lately read, the follow- 
ing account of the death of Judge Howe in 
America : — 

" For some time he had a severe struggle, in 
which not only his body seemed to suffer, but his 
spirit to sigh for deliverance. Three hours before 
his death, perfect calmness. He most fervently 
recommended to his friends 'charity/ — 'charity 
to all ! ' He alluded to a dream he had had some 
short time before. He thought that 'he stood 
on the piazza of his house enjoying the sunny 
prospect ; a mist arose and covered the sun. 
Then, after some time, a beautiful sunset/ He 
now mentioned to his wife that he had had a pre- 



238 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

sentiment of that moment, (his present dying 
circumstances.) His wife spoke of the beautiful 
sunset of his dream. 'And all the mists are gone/ 
he said, and shortly afterwards expired." * 

That there should be a natural avoidance of 
meditating very long and very deeply on the sub- 
ject of death, whilst the individual is able, and is 
required by circumstances, to engage in the busi- 
ness, and allowable, not to say necessary, 
recreations of life, is a merciful ordination of 
Providence. Without this restraint of nature, it 
would seem that the reason of the thing would 
prompt perpetual anxiety respecting a circum- 
stance so uncertain as to the time of its ap- 
pearance, but so inevitable in its coming, as the 
hour of death ; the only hour of which, from the 
time of our having any hours to number, we are 
sure of the arrival. As some one has only too truly 
said, " To be born, is to begin to die/' But the 
mercy of God shields His poor creatures under all 
the inevitable circumstances of their condition ; 
and our greatest trials are often those which our 
want of confidence in Him produces. Of all the 

* "Life of Dr Follen," p. 154. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 239 

miseries that humanity is called to experience, I 
do think an anxious mind is one of the greatest. 
I have been its victim all my life. Could I separate 
from my experience my real sorrows from the 
ideal ones, the actual burden I have had to bear 
would be wonderfully diminished. 

"An old French verse," says Mr Emerson, "runs 
thus in my translation : — 

" ' Some of your griefs you have cured, 

And the sharpest you still have survived ; 
But what torments of pain you endured, 
From evils that never arrived.' * 

It is the want of faith that sharpens every human 
woe ; the creature cannot trust the Creator." 

" No spiritual effort," says Coleridge, in his last 
illness, " seems to benefit me so much as the one 
earnest, importunate, and often, for hours, mo- 
mently repeated prayer, ' I believe ; Lord, help my 
unbelief! Give me faith, but as a mustard-seed, 
and I shall remove this mountain! Faith — faith 
— faith ! I believe ; Oh, give me faith ! Oh, for 
my Redeemer's sake, give me faith in my 
Redeemer ! ' " f 

* " Conduct of Life," p. 165. 

+ " Reminiscences of Coleridge," by Cottle, p. 332. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

AS an incentive to trust ourselves in the hands 
of God at our last hour, I was struck with a 
remark which a lady not long since repeated to 
me, as made to her by the medical man who was 
attending her in a severe illness, and to whom she 
was expressing some anxiety as to what would be 
her fate if she died. " She ^wondered who would 
receive her — who would take care of her in so new 
and strange a condition as that of a disembodied 
spirit ? " 

" Did you know, or think about, who was to 
receive, and take care of you, when you came into 
this world ? ; ' he replied. "Not a jot. Yet you 
were expected and provided for, without any care 
of your own ; and so you will find it where you 
are going." 

I have a very constant and comforting idea of 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 241 

the ministry of angels, and believe them to be 
ever benevolently busy in attending upon, and 
helping, the helpless denizens of this sad 
world. 

Blake, the painter, in his wild but often beautiful 
strain of thought, has, in the following lines, given 
forth some sweet ideas upon the ministry of angels; 
— ideas which float over the mind like the music 
of an ^Eolian harp : — 

" Farewell, green fields, and happy groves, 
Where flocks have took delight ; 
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves 
The feet of angels bright. 
Unseen they pour blessing, 
And joy without ceasing, 
On each bud and blossom, 
And each sleeping bosom. 

" They look in every thoughtless nest, 
Where birds are cover'd warm ; 
They visit caves of every beast, 
To keep them all from harm. 
If they see any weeping, 
That ought to be sleeping, 
They pour sleep on their head, 
And sit down by their bed. 

" When wolves and tigers howl for prey, 
They pitying, stand and weep ; . 
Seeking to drive their thirst away, 
And keep them from the sheep. 



242 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

But, if they rush dreadful, 
The angels, most heedful, 
Receive each mild spirit, 
New worlds to inherit." 

It is rather obscure what " mild spirits," are here 
designated ; but if it should be the lambs, kids, 
rabbits, and the like, on which the wild beasts " rush 
dreadful," it is a most sweet and consolatory 
thought to believe that there are " new worlds " 
for them to " inherit," as well as for man. " All 
death in nature," says Fichte, " is birth, — a new 
garment to replace the old vesture which hu- 
manity has laid aside in its progress to higher 
being." 

This thought of " higher being," as that mode 
of superior existence to which a whole creation 
is progressing — a " creation that groaneth and 
travaileth in pain until now " — is so fraught with 
comfort, and so suggestive of a purpose full of 
the power and wisdom of Omnipotence, that it 
seems wonderful how any thoughtful and intelligent 
mind can pass it by, to take up with the one-sided, 
narrow views of many sectarian religionists. But 
the sentiment of wonder at this, or at any other 
sort of fanaticism, must yield to the amazement 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 243 

with which the votaries of common sense, to say 
nothing of the advocates of religion, can con- 
descend to give a moment's attention to what goes 
by the name of spiritualism, or, as Mr Emerson 
more justly calls it, "the rat and mouse revela- 
tion!'* 

" I cannot but believe that these answers by 
mysterious raps," said a lady to me, as we were 
one day speaking on the subject of table-turning, 
spirit-rapping, and the rest of it, — " I cannot believe 
but that some kind of unearthly spirits, are the 
agents in these matters." " And suppose they 
be," quoth I, " grant that these raps, and knocks, 
and table-lifting, and walking on the ceiling are 
testimonies of the presence and agency of spirits, 
what does it prove, but that elsewhere, as well as 
here, there are feeble, foolish, crafty, contemptible 
beings, even more foolish and feeble than the 
knaves and knavesses of this world ; f for these can 
give an answer to the questions put to them in 

* " Conduct of Life," p. 129. 

+ Dr Henry More is recorded by his biographer to have said, 
"that he had a long time thought it, and not a few times said it, 
that there are as errant fools out of the body, as in the body." — 
Life of Dr More, by Rev. Richard Ward, p. 178. 



244 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

a simple, intelligible way. They may be, and pro- 
bably are, giving utterance to what is false in every 
word they speak ; nevertheless, they can speak it. 
They are not driven to the miserable, clumsy, 
utterly despicable contrivance of rapping out re- 
plies to another contrivance, equally contemptible, 
that of questions which have to be spelt out, 
letter by letter, from an alphabet." 

I can scarcely conceive upon what ground it 
has been possible for this wretched mummery to 
obtain a moment's attention on the part of persons, 
so gifted with mental power as some of those are 
whose names are mentioned as its patrons. But 
it is a remarkable, and a very repulsive, trait in 
human nature, even in its higher range of thought 
and position, that it will often permit itself to be 
arrested and interested in very paltry and unedify- 
ing exhibitions of what is unusual, and seemingly 
unaccountable, in the annals of mundane occur- 
rences ; whilst it w T ill cast a glance of scornful 
incredulity upon circumstances equally mysterious, 
but which, from the undoubted truthfulness of the 
testimony by w T hich they are guaranteed, as well 
as the wisdom and goodness of the purpose 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 245 

they illustrate, are worthy of an attention of the 
most reverential kind. 

In confirmation of this, I will here venture to 
relate a narrative,* which, at the time I first heard 
it, (now more than thirty years ago,) made an im- 
pression upon me of the most vivid and edifying 
kind ; but which I have, in most instances, seen 
treated with a smile of contempt, as indicating a 
species of fanaticism that was pitiable on the part 
of the persons whom it concerned. It came to me 
first, when I was passing an evening tete-d-tdte with 
a person prominent in the Society of Friends ; and 
who, knowing my great interest in the written 
experiences of the primitive members of the 
Society, had kindly opened a box which contained 
some of those memorials in a manuscript and 

* The circumstances of this incident appeared to me so remark- 
able, that, not many years since, I drew them up in the form of a 
tract, which I gave it to a publisher of such things. I do not suppose 
that it obtained a wide circulation, or any at all, indeed, except 
amongst the elderly members of the Society of Friends. These, I 
am persuaded, would readily endorse this narrative, as received by 
themselves and their predecessors for undoubted truth in every one 
of its details. I believe there is somewhere else, than in my tract, 
a published account of this transaction, but I do not know anything 
about it. At all events, I am quite sure, that neither by that, nor 
yet by mine, is the incident itself much known. 



246 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

unpublished state. After reading me a bit here, 
and a bit there, of these choice documents, " Now, 
here is something/' she said, " which I know, 
M. A. K., will interest thee deeply. If thou art 
not indisposed to give a little more time to it than 
we have bestowed upon the others, I will read it 
to thee." Of course, I consented, and she pro- 
ceeded to the perusal of the following statement ; 
which, I need not say, I do not give from 
any remembrance of what I then heard, but 
from a manuscript of the circumstance which 
some years afterwards was lent by me another 
member of the Society. It is headed with these 
words : — 

" The following account of a memorable instance 
of divine guidance and protection which attended 
James Dickenson and Jane Fearon, both of Cum- 
berland, when on a religious visit to Scotland,* in 
the early part of their labours in the gospel, was 
related by themselves, when each was about eighty 

* Supposed to be at the latter end of the seventeenth, or the be- 
ginning of the last century. I may also mention, that it is inferred 
in the Society, that James Dickenson and Jane Fearon were man and 
wife ; though by a practice not unusual in the north, in those days, 
she is here called by her maiden name. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 247 

years of age, to Sarah Taylor, when she was about 
eighteen — the one of them assisting the other in 
recollecting the circumstances as they related them 
to her/' 

It was in the northern part of that nation they 
were travelling, with a person whom they had pro- 
cured for a guide, to a town they proposed to reach 
that night. But as it was a very long stage, and 
the rain coming on heavy, and Jane growing ex- 
ceeding fatigued, she wished much to have taken 
up short of the town, if a suitable place offered, 
which their guide assured them would not be the 
case. Nevertheless, both of them being exceeding 
weak and weary, and coming up with a good-look- 
ing house, James rode up to it and asked if they 
could have lodgings and necessary accommodation 
there for the night. They were told that they 
could, upon which they determined to stop. 

When the guide saw this, he appeared to be 
very averse to it ; but finding that they decided to 
alight, he bid them farewell, saying they had no 
further need of him. He evidently left them with 
regret, but having strongly remonstrated against 



248 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

their calling there at all, before they went up to the 
house, he did not seem disposed to speak further 
in the hearing of the family. 

On their alighting, they were shown into a little 
room with a fire in it, which opened into the kit- 
chen or common room, where the family dwelt. 
Their horses were taken care of, their wet things 
put to dry, a posset was made for them, a cold 
meat-pie brought for their supper, and apparently 
they seemed likely to be comfortably accommo- 
dated. But, from their first sitting down in the 
room, they both of them grew very uneasy ; yet 
each of them, not knowing how the other felt, 
determined to keep silent about it. 

At last, Jane, unable to restrain her thoughts, 
observed that she felt a bad opinion about things. 
In fact, she said " that her apprehension was so 
great, and her notion of the place and people so 
bad, that she believed that the pie that was set 
before them was made oi human flesh /" 

Though thinking as ill as herself of the family, 
James Dickenson scarcely believed what she sup- 
posed of the pie ; saying that he had eaten of it, 
and thought it very good. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings, 249 

Whilst they were sitting in this room, the door 
being partly open into the other, they observed 
three very ill-looking men come in, and in a low 
voice tell the landlady, that "they had good horses." 

" Ay, and good saddle-bags too," she replied. 

This increased their uneasiness ; and James be- 
came closely engaged* to seek for divine counsel, 
as to how he should move in the case. Under this 
exercise of mind, he was favoured to believe that 
if they kept close to that which was near to help 
them, and attended to its pointings, they should be 
preserved, and a way would be made for their 
escape. 

I must pause here, to ask the reader to contrast 
this man's serene and dignified way of seeking 
supernatural guidance, and the holy calm with 
which his faith in its interior directions covered 
his mind, with the clumsy artifices, the bat-like 
flittings and flappings, the Jew's-harp jinglings 
and janglings, and the rest of the hocus-pocus, 
which, in the dealings of the modern spiritualists, 

* This expression of "closely engaged" is peculiar to the quakers 
of the primitive times ; and means, as here used, not that James 
outwardly and visibly prayed, but that he retired into deep silence, 
to feel, as it were, his way. 



250 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

are supposed to reveal intelligence from another 
world, and, as Mr Home lately replied in a court 
of justice, to the counsel who inquired the use of 
these manifestations, — " to prove the immortality of 
the sold." But to return : — 

With inward reliance on the gleam of spiritual 
light thus shed upon his path, James took his first 
step by asking about their lodgings. " They had 
business to transact," he said, "and should want can- 
dles, and would be glad to retire to their chamber." 

They were shown across a yard into a room in 
which there were two beds, but the door had no 
bolt to it. This was alarming, but on looking 
round, James observed a form or bench in the 
room, and found, on trying, that by setting one 
end of it to the door, it would just wedge in 
between it and the foot of one of the beds. 

When they were thus shut in, poor Jane sat down, 
and began to weep bitterly and wring her hands, 
and in her distress to say, that " she believed they 
should never go out of that house alive." On this 
James sat down by her, and told her to w be still." 

" He had been under great distress of mind," 
he said, M from their first sitting down in the house ; 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 251 

but that under his exercise, he had sought divine 
help ; and his mind had been favoured by that 
which never yet had failed him, to believe, that 
if they carefully attended to its pointings, they 
should be directed how to escape." 

They then both sat in perfect stillness for some 
time, attentively waiting for interior direction, 
At last James said, that the time for them to 
flee for their lives was come. 

Having observed on their first entrance into the 
room, a door opposite to that at which they came 
in, they discovered on opening it, that it led to a 
flight of stairs on the outside of the house next 
the road. James then said that he believed that 
was the way by which they were to get off. 
He then bid Jane pull off her shoes, and also put 
off his own. They then opened the door, and on 
doing so, they perceived a light shining through 
a chink between the first and second stair ; and 
were able to see, in the place beneath it, a woman 
engaged in sharpening a knife, which they appre- 
hended might be designed for their execution. 

Going softly down the steps, and on the road, 
till out of hearing of the people of the house, they 



252 The Solace of a Solitaii'e : 

then set off as quickly as they could ; James desir- 
ing Jane to run, and taking her arm to assist her 
in getting forward. After proceeding about half 
a mile in heavy rain, they discovered a kind of 
hovel or shed for cattle, where they tried to rest 
a while on some straw that had been left there. 
They soon, however, found, by painful impressions 
enforced upon both their minds, that this was not 
a safe halting-place. So, notwithstanding her ex- 
treme fatigue, and her being ready to sink with 
dread and dismay, James felt that he must urge 
upon Jane the necessity of their rousing themselves 
to further exertions ; which he forthwith did ; at 
the same time encouraging her with a firm hope 
that they should be preserved. Accordingly they 
once more set forward as fast as they could, till 
they came to the side of some water, the course 
of which they followed to a bridge, over which they 
were attempting to pass ; but when they got to the 
middle of it, James felt such a stop in his mind, 
and altogether so much restrained from proceed- 
ing, that he said at once, "This is not our way." 
They therefore returned, and again went on, keep- 
ing the course of the stream ; which, when they 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 253 

had gone about half a mile farther, increased 
greatly in breadth. 

Having stopped a short time, James said that 
they must cross the water at that place ; a 
proposal which greatly alarmed Jane, who was 
so totally overpowered with discouragement, that 
she could scarcely lay hold of the least hope that 
they should not wholly sink under their trying 
circumstances. " She believed," she said, " that 
if they went into the water, they should be 
drowned ;" as indeed, to mere human apprehen- 
sion, seemed only too certain. But James stood 
firm to his faith in their invisible, but present 
Helper; and endeavoured to cheer her by repeat- 
ing the inward evidence he had of their preserva- 
tion, if they only kept a steady eye to that divine 
direction which he felt assured had led them 
there ; and which instructed him to believe that 
their way was through the water at that place, 
and that they should get safe to the other side. 
Hereupon Jane, sustained by the strength of his 
faith, rather then her own, took riold of his arm, 
and ventured with him into the water, and they 
got to the other side in safety. 



254 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

After walking some distance, they came to a 
sand-bank, and sat down for a short time ; but 
presently James said, " I am not easy ; I feel that 
we must go farther yet." Upon this poor Jane 
replied, " Well, I can only go by thy faith ; I 
know r not what to do/' 

On going a little farther, they met with another 
sand-bank, wherein was a cavity in which they sat 
down ; and after they had been there a little 
while, James said, " I am now easy ; I believe we 
are perfectly safe, and I feel in my heart a song 
of praise and thanksgiving." 

" I cannot say so," replied Jane ; " I cannot so 
much as say, Lord have mercy upon me!" 

They had been here about half an hour, when 
they heard the noise of some people on the 
opposite side of the river ; upon which Jane was 
greatly alarmed, fearing they should be dis- 
covered. 

" Our lives depend upon our silence," James 
softly said to her. On this she became quiet ; 
and both of them attentively listening, they heard 
these people frequently urging on a dog, by 
repeating the words, " Seek them, Keeper — seek 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 255 

them." There was little doubt that these were 
the men they had seen at the house, now accom- 
panied by a dog. The probability was, that the 
dog losing the scent of their feet at the bridge, 
had regained, and followed it, along the river side 
to the place where they crossed. There, being 
baffled, he had stopped, whilst the people kept 
urging him on with the cry of, " Seek them, 
Keeper!" 

They not only distinctly heard this cry, but also 
saw a lantern which these men had, and heard 
one of them say, "They have crossed the river." 

" That is impossible," said another ; " unless the 
devil himself took them over; for the river is 
brimful." After w r earying themselves a consider- 
able time in their search, they went away, and 
were seen no more. 

When daylight appeared, they saw a man on a 
high hill at some distance, looking about him 
every way, as if trying to discover some trace of 
them. 

They continued quiet in their retreat till some 
time after sunrise ; and then, upon surveying the 
place, they perceived that under the first sand- 



256 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

bank where they rested, and from which they 
removed, they might have been discovered from 
the other side of the river ; whilst the place in 
which they remained, shaded them from being 
seen on the opposite side. 

On considering what they should do to recover 
their horses and saddle-bags, James said he felt 
inclined to return to the house ; but Jane proposed 
going to a town in order to get assistance to go 
with them. He objected to this ; that the town 
from which assistance was likely to be procured 
was about ten miles off; that they were strangers 
there, and that their reason for taking such 
precautions in returning to the house, implied a 
high charge, which they might not be able to 
prove ; and that thus occasion might be taken 
against them, to throw them into prison, by 
magistrates more disposed to use an opportunity 
of vexing them, than to search into the cause of 
their complaint. * 

Jane still hesitating, he said, " I cannot but 

* We are to remember that at this period, when state-pro- 
secutions for nonconformity were rife, the Quakers were, of all 
religious sects, the most the objects of cruel and constant per- 
secution. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 257 

incline to return to the house ; as I fully believe 
that our horses, our bags, and everything will be 
ready for us, without our being asked any 
questions ; and that the people we saw last night, 
we shall see no more." 

" I cannot — I dare not go back/' she replied. 

" Thou mayest safely do so," he said : again 
encouraging her by adding, " for I have seen it in 
that which never yet deceived me." On this they 
returned to the house, and found their horses 
standing in the stable, saddled, and their saddle- 
bags upon them ; their clothes dried, and laid 
ready to put on ; and saw no person but an old 
woman sitting in a nook by the fire-side, whom 
they did not remember seeing the night before. 

They asked her what they had to pay, and 
having discharged it, they proceeded on their 
journey. 

About two years after this time, James Dicken- 
son happening to be travelling the same way on 
a religious visit, passed the place where the house 
above mentioned had stood ; and found that it 
had been totally pulled down and destroyed ; and 

on coming to the inn at the town which they 

R 



258 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

intended to have reached, when they took up their 
quarters at this place, he inquired what was 
become of the people, and the cause of their 
house being pulled down ? 

He was told that, at such a time (which happened 
to be but a little while after he and Jane were 
there) some travellers who had been observed to 
go there to lodge, were missing ; and the place 
having for a long time had a very bad name, and 
the people being strongly suspected of murdering 
many who had gone to them, the whole neigh- 
bourhood rose with one consent to beset the 
house, and arrest the people. 

On searching the premises, the bodies of the 
missing travellers were found, with others in 
different stages of decomposition. The people 
of the house were tried, and five of them executed ; 
and the house razed to the ground. 

As it regards myself, I perfectly believe every 
word in this remarkable narration ; but I do not 
believe that many persons will be found who will 
look at it for a moment as a veritable record 
of actual facts. The cause of their refusal to 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 259 

do so, I think, may be found in the increased 
adherence to material things, and consequent 
contempt and scorn of everything that does 
not minister to the will and wishes of the fleshly 
mind, which (always a characteristic of human 
nature) has now become human nature itself ; 
unredeemed by any other faith in the spiritual 
world, than is to be obtained at a seance, presided 
over by such ministers as have lately been ex- 
hibited to public observation in the case of Mr 
Home ! 

Well does Mr Emerson remark, "There is 
faith in chemistry, in meat and wine, in wealth, 
in machinery, in the steam-engine, galvanic 
battery, turbine-wheels, sewing-machines, and in 
public opinion ; but not in divine causes."* 

* " Conduct of Life," p. 128. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

T T has been more than once suggested to 
me, that in the case just narrated, in which 
James Dickenson conceived himself to be speci- 
ally guided by divine direction, — a ready solution 
for such a belief on his part is to be found 
in the tenet peculiar to the Quakers, of being 
what they call, " moved by the Spirit." 

Now, it is a curious circumstance, that these 
very people who repudiate as fanatical, Dicken- 
son's faith in being moved, or directed by the 
Spirit ; and would accept in preference to such 
a faith, any other kind of supposed supernatural 
interference ; as, for instance, a dream — a pre- 
sentiment, coming nobody knows whence — nor 
for what end, or perhaps, even the " rat and 
mouse" revelation of raps and table jumps; 
these are the people who are strict in their 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 261 

own religious observances ; and, above all, in a 
regular attendance at church, where, amongst the 
first words they hear, and as giving the reason 
why they are there to listen to any words at all, 
are those of " the Scripture moveth us." 

It must be conceded, and I am quite willing to 
make the concession, that these are persons who 
give to the Bible an avowed superiority to the 
Spirit, by calling the book " the Word of God." 
I am not going to discuss the preposterous incon- 
gruity of giving precedence to the words of a book, 
addressed to the outward ear, over the " still small 
voice" of that Holy Spirit which addresses the 
inward part of the man ; and that part, we are to 
remember, where this very book instructs us to 
believe, "God will make us to know wisdom."* 
" Ah, but do you remember who inspired that 
book ?" they say to me, when I speak thus. 

" Perfectly," is my reply ; " and I know on my 
own experien.ce, that many parts of that book 
are the dictates of the Spirit of Truth. But I have 
not come to this knowledge, because I found them 

* "In the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom," 
(Ps. li. 6.) 



262 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

there ; but because I found in the depth of my own 
soul, a measure of the same Spirit which gave the 
same truth to the writer in the book; and this 
measure of truth in vie, recognises its own nature 
in the language of Scripture, and constrains me, 
on the strength of this inward testimony, to accept 
of what I find there to which it bears witness. 
I reverence, and consider it my duty to accept, 
both modes of instruction ; but I regard the ever- 
living, ever-present Teacher in my own soul, as 
my primary and all-sufficient Guide ; and one so 
perfectly infallible, that I would accept of nothing 
as truth which He did not confirm and respond to." 
It is a wise remark of a learned and wise man, 
that " there is a flesh and a spirit, a body and a 
soul, in all the writings of Scripture. It is but the 
flesh and body of divine truths that is printed upon 
paper; which alone, many moths of books and 
libraries feed upon ; many walking skeletons of 
knowledge, who bury and entomb truths in the 
living sepulchres of their souls, and converse only 
with these ; men who never did anything else but 
pick at the mere bark and rind of truth, and crack 
the shells of them. But there is a soul and spirit 






A Record of Facts and Feelings. 26 



j 



of divine truth, which could never yet be congealed 
into ink, which never could be blotted upon paper ; 
which by a secret traduction and conveyance, 
passes from one soul unto another, being able to 
dwell or lodge nowhere but in a spiritual being, — 
in a living thing, — because itself is nothing but 
life and spirit"* 

Of the fallacy involved in making the Bible the 
first, and in fact, as most religious professors take 
it, — we may say, the only guide of the human 
being, — we may discover an illustration, and no 
insignificant one, in this very case of the Quakers, 
which we have been considering. For, are we to 
suppose that James Dickenson and his companion, 
who had neither of them (as far as it appears) 
a Bible at hand to turn to in their doubts and 
difficulties, — are we, I say, to suppose that on this 
account they are to be regarded as fanatics, for 
imagining that they had a sure and safe guide, 
without it, in " the light which lighteth every man 
that cometh into the world " ? Rather than yield 
assent to this doctrine of immediate inspiration, 

* Dr Cudworth. From " A Sermon preached before the House 
of Commons, March 31, 1647, being a day of humiliation." 



264 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

the sticklers for the supremacy of the Bible would, 
I am persuaded, insist upon it, that it was by 
thinking upon some particular text that Dickenson 
was influenced to be so confident of safety ; and 
then they would refer to certain passages of 
Scripture, which the man probably remembered, 
and acted upon. 

Be it so, is my reply ; he might, and probably 
had, a recollection of such passages ; and very 
precious passages they are. But these, as leading 
to general or universal conclusions, were not ex- 
actly what he then stood in need of. He, and 
his helpless companion, required at that moment 
some specific directions, adapted to their personal 
exigency ; just as they might have wanted to 
know the best way and means of going on their 
journey the next day; and under this necessity 
had inquired of the people of the house for 
information. It would have been a very excellent 
precept to set before them, as an answer, that 
word of Scripture which says, " Trust in the Lord, 
and He shall bring it to pass;" but I apprehend 
it would not have met the case in question. 
James might have the most distinct recollection 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 265 

of the text which says, " Order my steps in Thy 
word ;" and very probably would prefer that very 
prayer to Him in whose Word they trusted. But 
for the way in which their steps were to be taken, 
they would find no specific direction in the written 
Word. Happily, however, for them, the Word in 
which they trusted, and to which they referred, 
was not confined to a book ; but was living, 
and present, and speaking, and acting as the 
Guide that ordered their goings — step by step. 

As it regards either the Spirit or the letter, I 
have heard it said that the matter of which of 
them is the leader is of no importance, so long 
as people obey their convictions. 

Our convictions are unquestionably our proper 
and only efficient guides ; for conviction is only 
another name for feeling ; and just as much as we 
feel the power of anything, are we convinced of its 
truth. Therefore, to be firmly built up on our 
convictions, is to rest upon a stand-point on which 
we feel the ground firm under our feet. Mr 
Emerson carries his reliance on the force of con- 
viction, or, as he terms it, " living from within" 
to a startling length :■ — 



266 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

"Nothing is at last sacred," he says, "but the 
integrity of your own mind. I remember an 
answer which, when I was quite young, I was 
prompted to make to a valued adviser who was 
wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines 
of the Church. On my saying, ' What have I to 
do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly 
from within?' my friend suggested, 'But these 
impulses may be from below, not from above.' I 
replied, ' They do not seem to me to be such ; but 
if I am the devil's child, I will live then, from the 
devil' " * 

We need not go so far as this, to be perfectly 
assured that it is of the utmost importance that 
human beings should possess a principle of faith 
which affords them an interior resting-place — a 
rock of defence — a consciousness of shelter ; in 
short, somewhat to which they instinctively resort 
for help and comfort in all their various exi- 
gencies. In order to feel, and be established in 
this divine principle, this counsel from a mystical 
writer, whose words have often been greatly blest 
to my own soul, may be found useful : — 

* Essay on Self-Reliance, p. 9. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 267 

" Thou art to know," he says, " that thy soul is 
the centre, habitation, and kingdom of God. To 
the end, therefore, that thy Sovereign may rest 
upon that throne, — thou oughtest to take pains 
to keep it pure, empty, and peaceable. Pure from 
sin and error ; quiet from anxiety ; empty of 
affections and desires, and peaceable in times of 
trial and temptation."* 

This sentence describes a proximity of the 
creature to the Creator, which it is, indeed, very 
solemn to contemplate as actually existing. But 
that we live much closer than we are aware of, 
and far more so than we are willing to believe, to 
spiritual and invisible agencies, I am well assured 
of. 

" Nor think, though men were none, 
That earth would want spectators, God want praise. 
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep." 

— Milton's Paradise Lost. 

Besides that, I have, on more than one occasion, 
been clearly aware of interior pointings to a particu- 
lar line of conduct, (much oftener to one of passivity 

* The Spiritual Guide of Michael Molinos ; who died in the 
Inquisition at Rome, 1688. 



268 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

than of action,) I have also been sensible of super- 
natural influence in the felt presence of departed 
spirits, with whom, in the days of their flesh, I 
was particularly associated. And of their nearness, 
I was not made aware by any raps on the table, 
or anything addressed to my senses ; but by a 
peculiar sweetness that accompanied the idea of 
the beloved departed friend ; and a feeling of the 
presence of that individual, flowing over my soul, 
gently and soothingly, like " the waters of Shiloah 
that go softly," * and which instinctively prompted 
from my grateful heart, ejaculations of " wonder, 
love, and praise." 

But it is fit that I should state that these favours 
have been " few and far between ;" and always, as 
it seemed to me, conditional on a prepared state 
of mind, — a state in which suffering, patiently, 
prayerfully, and long sustained, had paved the way 
for their appearance ; a state well described by the 
afflicted patriarch when he says, "God maketh my 
heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me."f In 
this condition of brokenness and sorrow, the faith- 
ful sufferer is occasionally made to experience the 

* Isaiah viii. 6. f Job xxiii. 16. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 269 

reality of that word which says, " Thus saith the 
high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose 
name is Holy ; I dwell in the high and holy place, 
with him also that is of a contrite and humble 
spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to 
revive the heart of the contrite ones/'* 

With those persons, who, by faith, have obtained 
an experience of the meaning of that scripture 
which speaks to some as having come to " the 
general assembly and church of the first-born, 
which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge 
of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect" \ — 
this sense of the presence of departed friends is 
not unknown. 

Writing a letter of consolation to one who had 
lost a friend, who was dear to himself, as well as 
his correspondent, Fenelon says, " It is only the 
senses and the imagination that have lost their 
object. " He whom we do not see is more truly with 
us than he ever was. We shall meet him in our 
common centre. Although I have not sqqr him 
for many years, yet I have felt as if I conversed 
with him. I have opened my heart to him, and 

* Isaiah lvii. 15. + Hebrews xii. 23. 



270 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

believed that we have met in the presence of 
God."* 

On the death of Edward Burrough, a valued 
minister amongst the early Friends, George Fox, 
writing to those of the Society who were the most 
likely to feel and deplore his departure in the 
prime of life,f thus expresses himself: — " Be still 
and quiet in your own conditions, and settled in 
the seed of God that doth not change; that in 
that, you may feel dear E. B. among you" 

On this point, of our being " compassed with so 
great a cloud of witnesses," Dr Henry More speaks 
out boldly, by placing a great part of the felicity 
of those who " have died in the Lord," in being 
in communion with those who are yet in the body, 
and especially in being helpful to them. He says, 
that " having had so palpable experience of the 
human condition, with more sweet and compas- 
sionate affection, they are ready to help and assist 

* Spiritual Letters. 

*f* He was imprisoned in Newgate, with more than a hundred 
other members of the Society, for refusing to take an oath in a court 
of justice ; and the jail fever breaking out, he fell a victim to it in 
the year 1662. His last words were, "Now my soul and spirit is 
centred in its own being with God ! — and this form of person must 
return from whence it was taken." 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 271 

those souls that are yet toiling in human bodies, 
if they be good and simple-hearted. For the high 
pleasure of all holy and divine souls is to be 
ministers of the goodness of God ; which they 
could not be, if there were not subjects fitted for 
their beneficence ; that is, creatures in exigencies 
and straits, as simple and well-meaning souls are 
here, in the body."* 

" Remembrance," says Schelling, " is but a 
feeble expression to convey the intimate connexion 
which exists between those who are departed, and 
those who remain. In our innermost being we 
are in strict union with the dead ; for, in our 
better part, we are no other than what they are 
— spirits." 

In such "exigencies and straits," (to return to 
Dr More's view of the case,) as those of James 
Dickenson and Jane Fearon, for instance, if the 
doctor's sentiments are founded in truth, we may 
safely believe them to have been assisted by the 
beneficence of the departed spirits of "the just made 
perfect." These, however, are subjects which, 
when offered to popular notice, must be but briefly 

* Ward's " Life of Dr Henry More," pp. 294, 295. 



272 The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 

handled. In order -to be rightly received, they 
demand a reverential frame of mind, and a prepar- 
ation of heart, which can scarcely be looked for 
except in comparatively few and special cases. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

\li WHILST engaged in writing these pages, 

to which my condition as a Solitaire 

almost necessarily imparts a character of egotisim, 

the thought has repeatedly crossed my mind, if 

it were not better altogether to refrain from 

writing, than to employ it chiefly in relating the 

history of my own mind. Yet, the succeeding 

thought has suggested, that, upon- the whole, 

I obtain a degree and kind of mental correction 

out of the employment which is of great value ; 

for, not only are the glimpses one obtains of one's 

own heart, and its extreme treachery, admonitory, 

and, so far, useful ; but a lesson is gained by the 

journalist of his own thoughts and feelings, which 

is calculated to enlighten him as to their actual 

insignificance, which can scarcely fail of being 

beneficial. This lesson is found in the contrast 

S 



274 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

which he is compelled to make between his own 
excessive interest in his occupation and its results ; 
and the indifference with which, probably, his 
most intimate friends, and certainly the public, 
will regard what has been to him of so much 
importance. 

Till circumstances have taught him this lesson, 
the engrossing nature of his employment entirely 
conceals from him the fact, that, charming as 
may be this mental portrait-painting to himself, it 
is a very small matter to other people. 

Mr Emerson, in his graphic way, admirably 
exhibits this. " Each young and ardent person," 
he says, "writes a diary, in which, when the hours 
of prayer and penitence arrive, he inscribes his 
soul. The pages thus written are to him burning 
and fragrant: he reads them on his knees, by 
midnight, and by the morning star. He wets 
them with his tears ; they are sacred ; too good 
for the world, and hardly yet to be shown to his 
dearest friend. 

"After some time has elapsed, he begins to 
admit his friend to this hallowed experience ; and 
with hesitation, yet with firmness, exposes the 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 275 

pages to his eye. Will they not burn his 
eyes ? 

" The friend coldly turns them over, and passes 
from the writing to conversation, with easy transi- 
tion, which strikes the other party with astonish- 
ment and vexation. He cannot suspect the 
writing itself. Days and nights of fervid life, of 
communion with angels of darkness and of light, 
have engraved their shadowy characters on that 
tear-stained book. He suspects the intelligence 
or the heart of his friend. Is there, then, no 
friend ? He cannot yet credit that one may have 
impressive experience, and yet may not know how 
to put his private fact into literature ; and perhaps 
the discovery that wisdom has other tongues and 
ministers than we, and that though we should hold 
our peace, the truth would not the less be spoken, 
might check injuriously the flames of our zeal."* 

The days of youth, with its fervent heat, have 
long been passed with me ; and the experience of 
a more advanced period has delivered me from 
indulging any dreams of making a sensation by 
the productions of my pen. I may confidently 

* "Essay on Nature,'" Second Series, p. 125. 



276 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

believe, that I am not likely to be either surprised 
or mortified by the indifference with which any 
work of mine may be received. I know enough 
of the world to be quite aware that literary vanity, 
when it gets upon stilts, and goes about like 
other exhibitors, who beat a drum, and gather 
a crowd to see them dance in the highways, is 
pretty sure of being soon and sharply corrected. 

I think, therefore, I may hope to obtain credit, 
when I say, that it is not under an idea of being 
interesting, but in the hope of being instructive, 
that (added to the need of occupation) I have 
engaged in this employment. 

The insight which such an occupation affords to 
a writer, of the truth of that word of Scripture 
which says, "The heart is deceitful above all 
things, and desperately wicked," * is highly instruc- 
tive, not only to the individual himself, but to all 
who may read his lucubrations ; supposing, of 
course, that they are persons who read with some 
more definite and useful purpose, than to get rid 
of time. 

Of the amazing delusion in which we may 

* Jeremiah xvii. 9. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 277 

be wrapt as to our standing with respect to our 
faithfulness in the details of life, even when the 
general habit of mind is that of sincerity, we 
can scarcely be aware, until we scrutinise our- 
selves much more rigidly than in the usual 
routine of life we are accustomed to do. 

I met with an amusing specimen (I call it amus- 
ing from the ingenuous naivete with which it is 
exhibited) of this insensibility to the deceivableness 
of our nature, until we have set ourselves to pull it 
to pieces, as it were, and examine it bit by bit, 
in a remarkable book, which first fell in my way 
more than thirty years ago ; and which then made 
a very mixed, but, nevertheless, a strong impression 
upon me ; so strong, indeed, that on seeing it within 
the last month, in the catalogue of a dealer in old 
books in Paternoster Row, I immediately wrote to 
secure it as my own. 

It was rather a singular coincidence, that it was 
not a copy of the book which had been lent me so 
long ago by a friend in a provincial town, that was 
sent to my order ; — but the identical book itself, 
which I had then and there read, and which I 
recognised the moment I opened it, by seeing my 



278 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

friend's name in his own handwriting on the 
blank page of the first leaf. The decease of my 
friend had, no doubt, caused his library of very 
choice and rare books to be sent to London for 
sale. 

Of this particular one of which I speak, when I 
state that it is from the pen of the celebrated 
Lavater,* it may, perhaps, gain for itself from some 
few persons, (in these days, I am aware, they will 
be but few,) something more than a brief and 
casual attention. 

It is worth more, — not on account of any deep 
views, either in a way of philosophy or religion, 
that it contains, but as an unquestionably faithful 
picture of the mind of a remarkable man ; and, as 
it has a bearing on the subject we are discussing, 
and is, in itself, a curious illustration of the advan- 
tages and disadvantages of that subject, and, 
moreover, a scarce publication, I will endeavour to 
merge my own egotism for a time in that of this 

* The title runs thus : — "Secret Journal of a Self-Observer; or 
Confessions and Familiar Letters of the Rev. J. C. Lavater, author of 
the Essays on Physiognomy, the Aphorisms on Man, &c. Trans- 
lated from the German original by the Rev. Peter Will, minister of 
the Reformed German Chapel in the Savoy." 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 279 

writer, by quoting from him somewhat copi- 
ously. I hope this may prove to the relief of the 
reader ; who, I fear, has, by this time, been wishing 
me to make my obeisance and take my leave. 

The period at which the journal commences is 
the 1st of January 1769. 

After a pious invocation for divine help, to 
enable him so to pass his time from that period 
that " every one of his days might be distinguished 
by at least one good deed," — the journalist ad- 
dresses his heart, by desiring it to be sincere. "Do 
not conceal from me," he says, "thy secret recesses. 
I will make friendship, and erect a covenant, with 
thee. Know, my heart, that no friendship is wiser 
and more abounding in blessings, than the friend- 
ship and intimacy of a heart with itself. He who 
is not his own confidant, can never become a friend 
of God and virtue." 

We have here, I think, in another form, Adam 
Smith's idea of " the man within the breast." As 
I think Lavater's strain in his opening sentences is 
a very just one, I will go on with them a little 
further. " The more we shun ourselves," he pro- 
ceeds to say, '.' the nearer we approach to hypoc- 



280 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

risy* ; and there is nothing I despise more than a 
hypocrite." 

" Those who know the human heart have made 
the just remark, that we cease being sincere as 
soon as we perceive that we are observed. But it 
is just the reverse with a rigorous observation of 
ourselves. We always begin to be sincere as soon 
as our heart perceives that we watch its senti- 
ments." It strikes me that there is a great deal 
of truth in these observations of Lavater ; for, in 
this view of the case, the habit of noting down our 
thoughts and feelings, is calculated to make us 
faithful in dealing with ourselves. I have more 
than one person in my mind at this time, who, I 
feel confident, would no more talk to themselves 
confidentially, than they would talk confidentially 
to the strangers they met with in a railway 
carriage ; and what seems to me the nature of 
these persons ? Just that which Lavater describes 
as bordering upon hypocrisy, from the fact of their 
" shunning themselves." 

It is a precious maxim of holy writ which 
desires us to " commune with our own heart, and 
be still." Having finished his introductory 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 281 

remarks, he proceeds to lay down certain rules 
of conduct, all extremely good ; but which, in 
their specific details, would beapt to be tedious. 
They possess also the inherent defect of all 
prescribed rules, except those of the multipli- 
cation table, and the rest of the dogmas enshrined 
in Cocker's arithmetic — viz., that they are per- 
petually liable to be infringed by the force of 
circumstances. The best lesson we learn from 
drawing up for personal use a code of rules, 
which we are tolerably certain of violating, is, 
to live by the rule and demand of the day and 
hour ; or, in other words, to make it a principle 
always to act up to the dictates of conscience, 
with a fixedness well expressed in Pope's 
Universal Prayer, by the supplication, 

" What conscience dictates to be done, 
Or warns me not to do ; 
This, teach me more than hell to shun, 
That, more than heaven pursue " — 

and then, taking things as they come, and people 
as they are, to shape our conduct, as it respects 
both things and people, according to the light which 
the present moment brings with it. It was wise 
counsel of a good man, writing to a friend, who, 



282 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

I suppose, might be (as a Scotch gentleman once 
told me that I myself was) " fearfii foresighty" — 
to have nothing to do with forehand contrivances ; 
for they never succeed. God turns all His dis- 
pensations another way. 

" Let us be content," says Fenelon, " to follow 
the light of the present moment, without looking 
farther. It is our daily bread which God gives us 
for the day. It is like the manna in the wilder- 
ness, and he that would gather a double portion 
and make provision for the ensuing day, deceives 
himself; for it will corrupt in his hands." 

Lavater had to experience this „ as a sad but 
certain truth; for, though on the 1st of January, 
amongst many other excellent resolutions, he 
determined "never to sleep longer than eight 
hours at the most, when in health ;" and also, 
" with the assistance of God, to accustom myself 
to do everything without exception in the name of 
Jesus Christ ; and as His disciple to sigh every 
hour to God for the blessing of the Holy Ghost, 
and always to be disposed to prayer," — the 
journalist has to record that January the 3d was 
" a day full of confusion. I could neither 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 283 

read, meditate, nor work. I slept with an un- 
accountable heaviness till it was broad day. 
Very likely I should have tossed myself about 
in my bed some time longer, if the insufferable 
smell of the extinguished night-lamp had not 
caused me to open my eyes. I was a-bed till 
nine o'clock. What a sight to angels I" 

If they were of the kind that Blake describes, 
they would not have been very angry ; at all 
events nothing nearly so much so as he was with 
himself. He proceeds in his self-castigation, by 
relating his further delinquencies. 

" It was nine o'clock, as I have mentioned, when 
I rose, vexed at the smell of the lamp. The tea- 
kettle was on the table, the water almost boiling 
over ; the sun shone through the half-frozen 
windows, so dazzling that I was ashamed of 
myself, and grew so uneasy that I did not know 
what to do." 

Still burdened with the burden he had laid upon 
himself, in resolving to be always wakeful, and 
ready to get up at a prescribed time, our poor 
journalist goes on harping on the same string, — 
" Why did not some one wake me?" Then tor- 



284 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

mented with the smell of the expiring candle, 
feeling - , no doubt, as everybody feels, that when 
one thing especially disturbs the mind, every other 
untoward circumstance mixes with it, and lends its 
aid to make, perhaps, a mole-hill into a mountain, 
— " What a terrible stench is this !" he goes on to 
say, or rather to write ; for all these soliloquies, 
we are to remember, are to be recorded in black 
and white, and to be read, it would seem, a hundred 
years hence by persons whose ancestors were not 
yet born. Abruptly turning from the smell of the 
lamp, he records his next words, — " Where is my 
tobacco and my pipe?" Then reverting to the 
tumult of his interior kingdom, — " Thus," he says, 
" thus was I putting one question after the other 
to the servant who was just entering the room. 

"•' Only the third day of the year,' said I to my- 
self, as soon as I was left alone, ' and commenced 
in so shameful a manner!' It is so cold in the 
room, thought I, at the same moment, before I 
pursued the first idea. I went to the fireside, — 
No fire yet ! Somebody knocked at the door. 
I opened it, and Mr M. was standing there. ' I 
hope I do not disturb you/ said he. ' Not in the 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 285 

least, I am extremely glad you are come/ And 
yet I was very much displeased at it, because I 
had something to do." 

Mr M. then propounds the purpose of his visit, 
which is to read Lavater a manuscript, on which, 
if agreeable to him to hear it, he wishes his 
opinion. He assents, "with great pleasure." 

Mr M. begins to read with " emphasis, and his 
looks seemed to demand applause. I smiled and 
nodded, as if highly pleased ; and, to confess the 
truth, I hardly knew what he was reading, so much 
was I absorbed in thought, and so little disposed to 
be attentive. Now he finished. ' Excellent!' ex- 
claimed I ; ' I hope you will publish it.' ' Your 
approbation,' he replied, ' has sufficient weight 
with me, to encourage me to venture it. But you 
are too indulgent. Dare I leave this manuscript 
with you that you may look it over?' 'There is 
no occasion,' I replied ; ' however, if you insist 
upon it, I will peruse it once more. I am sure 
I shall like it better on a second perusal.'" It is 
but reasonable that such palpable untruth should 
elicit the comment of " O heart, I have flattered, 
and have been a hypocrite ! " 



286 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

On looking over the manuscript, he finds it 
filled with unpardonable defects, and accordingly 
rebukes his heart by saying, " Thou hast deserved 
it, and now thou art punished." The puzzle 
then comes of what steps he is to take in the 
matter. " How shall I retract my first opinion?" 
he asks. " Shall I confirm it ? — That would be 
abominable. Give a contrary opinion ? — How 
humiliating." The conflict is ended by his writ- 
ing a letter to Mr M., and sending back the 
manuscript, honestly confessing that the opinion 
he had given in the first instance, was that 
of "an inattentive, regardless, and discomposed 
man." He then observes, " I have taken the liberty 
of marking those passages which, as I think, 
require correcting. The very same which I, as far 
as I can remember, seemed to approve. It is I, 
and not you, who ought to blush, that my present 
opinion is quite the reverse of the former." 

The note being despatched, he recovers his 
spirits ; and goes on to say, " I now was alone, 
and could have performed what I had neglected 
in the morning;" — to wit, the reading his rules, 
and saying his prayers. " However, I was too 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 287 

lazy. I was indisposed ; filled my pipe, and 
called for a candle. The candle was brought, 
and company announced." 

The whole evening was spent in empty talk ; 
and he concludes the journal for this day, with 
remarking that it is " the last which he will spend 
this year in such a manner." 

It is refreshing to the reader of this morbid 
exhibition of a mind diseased by efforts at self- 
government, undertaken without due consideration 
of the exceeding weakness of humanity, to come 
to an entry in a day or two, which testifies of 
emotions more healthy and cheerful. 

" I awoke in good time, and asked my wife if 
she would join me in prayer; and we rose up and 
prayed, God be praised — not without feeling and 
devotion — Oh, how do I praise Thee, omnipresent 
Love ! Tears of heart-felt joy bedewed my 
cheeks ; and the most noble and Christian 
thoughts flashed through my tranquil and serene 
mind." 

Very soon, alas, this pleasant condition has to 
be exchanged for a return of one of self-reproach 
and discomfort, and all through what seems to 



288 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

have been a peculiar besetment of his, to lie in bed 
late in the morning. " I have again begun the 
day," he says, "with unpardonable laziness. I 
tremble at my glaring inconsistency in whatever 
is good — at the incredible contradictions which 
I daily perceive in my principles, actions, and 
omissions. Shall I never be able to bring them 
to a perfect harmony ? " 

"Never, Lavater," I would have whispered in 
his ear ; " never, whilst you spend the strength 
you should use in sinking down into interior 
silence, and, in that silence, standing firm as a 
rock against the incursions of vain, evil, and 
agitating thoughts ; never, believe me, whilst, 
instead of doing this, you run, as it were, into the 
very arms of these assailers, hear what they have 
got to say, argue with them, and, if that is not 
enough, when you have done talking to them, go 
to your desk, and try to recall it all back again, 
in order to record it in your journal!" I could 
speak this with great confidence, because, in my 
own case, I have known how impossible it is to 
come at anything like internal peace in any other 
way than by silent, patient endurance of the 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 289 

assaults of painful thoughts ; and the getting up as 
quick as I can, when, through transgression, I have 
got a fall, and resuming my way with more caution. 

Till by long and terrible conflicts with that 
strange morbid habit of all sensitive minds, of 
yielding to distressing thoughts, I had obtained 
a clear sight of the right way of conquering them, 
and steadfastly adhered to it, — I have sometimes 
been followed by a haunting thought, till I felt as 
if I must run out of the house half crazy, to get 
away from it. 

Fretted by the disorder of spirit which he knew 
neither how to calm nor how to endure by any 
clearly defined and practical principle, Lavater 
goes on to relate : — " I tossed myself about in my 
bed, deaf to the voice of conscience, and callous 
to the recollection of the pleasure which my early 
morning devotion had afforded me yesterday, and 
slumbered till it had struck eight o'clock. 

" Angry at my wife's question, ' Whether I could 

not pray and read with her/ I sat down ; and at 

first could not resist the impatient wish to have 

finished the morning prayer, which I was reading 

from Zollikofer's hymn-book. Yet some good 

T 



290 The Solace of a Solitaire • 

thoughts penetrated through the mist which 
clouded my mind. Having finished my prayer, 
to which I added some hymns, my mind grew 
more serene. ... I now went to work with great 
serenity ; kissed my wife, and thanked her. ' If 
you had not invited me to pray,' I said, 'God 
knows what would have become of me this day.' " 

The good wife, who seems to have been all he 
could want or wish in a helpmeet, pressed his 
hand, replying with unspeakable meekness, " Go 
with cheerfulness to your work ; you can still do 
much good this day/' 

On going down to dinner, he found a friend 
whom his considerate wife had invited in order to 
cheer him, and give him an unexpected pleasure. 
I am afraid Mrs Lavater was greatly accessory 
to the manifold peccadilloes of her husband, by 
being too careful of his ease, and humouring him 
more than was good for him. "Men are but 
children of a larger growth ;" and, like the smaller 
ones, are greatly the worse for being too much 
indulged. 

At this dinner, " a bottle was overturned and 
broken to pieces. A gentle, smiling lock from 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 291 

my wife, restrained my rising anger." On this 
occasion one of the company related the following 
story : — 

" A pious man once received a present of a very 
costly set of china. He would not accept it. 
However, it was sent back to him again. At 
last, he accepted it, and gave the porter some 
money to drink his health — took a key from his 
pocket, and broke it to pieces with the greatest 
coolness. 'Very likely/ said he, 'some person 
may happen to break it, and it is not less likely 
that it then may occasion a sinful anger in the 
heart of the possessor, or a secret anxiety in the 
mind of him that breaks it. If it should be 
admired and frequently used at my table, I 
might by degrees grow so fond of it, that it 
might irritate me, if anybody, or perhaps myself, 
should break it through carelessness. I will 
therefore prevent anything of that kind.' " 

" This story, ,? Lavater goes on to say, " edified me 
very much. A great deal was said for, and against 
it. I thought that it was a wise and noble deed." 

Here we have a striking specimen of the danger 
which attends a habit of too constantly, and too 



292 The Solace of a Solitaire, &c. 

closely inspecting the motives of our actions. 
Mr Cecil says that n a tender conscience is a great 
blessing ; but a scrupulous conscience is a great 
curse." I do not remember being guilty of any- 
thing so preposterous from interior scruples, as 
the incident here related. But I too well remem- 
ber when, at one period of my life, a wild, Irish 
fanatic, hovered about my sick-bed, and fearfully 
disturbed my mind with suggestions of this and 
the other strange thing that religious duty required 
of me, that I durst not accept a present, that was 
calculated to please or administer comfort to the 
flesh, upon any consideration. 

A dear old Fellow of a college, who had been a 
family friend for years at my father's house, 
having sent me a pheasant whilst I was in this 
half-crazy state, I felt compelled to return it. It 
was the same with baskets of fruit, choice bottles 
of wine, &c. ; I dare no more have touched them, 
than I dare have drunk aquafortis. I can scarcely 
think of these things without a shudder, which 
is not ameliorated by the conviction that, extrava- 
gant as they were, they resulted from a pure and 
strictly conscientious motive. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

CANNOT quit the journal of Lavater, without 
recording a few more extracts from it. A 
visit which he mentions his paying to a dying 
friend, is too curiously characteristic of the versa- 
tility of his thoughts and feelings to be passed 
over. He thus introduces it : — 

" When I awoke, a messenger was waiting for 

me, delivering a letter from my friend at 

H , who entreated me to pay him a visit, if 

possible, for he was very ill. I was frightened, 
and yet this intelligence had something pleasing 
in it, though, God knows, I love my friend sincerely. 
His death would grieve me much. It is not the 
first time that my fright occasioned by afflicting 
intelligence, seemed to be mixed with secret joy.* 

* Rochefoucault's very unpalatable maxim seems to crop up here : 



294 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

I recollect to have felt once, on a sudden alarm 
of fire, something so very pleasing, that, on cool 
reflection, makes me shudder. Was this sensation 
the effect of the novelty, and the suddenness of 
the alarm, or of the presentiment of the concern 
which those with whom I should have an oppor- 
tunity of conversing on that incident would show, 
and which is always somewhat flattering to the 
narrator ? Or, was it, which is most likely, the 
consequence of the joyful sensation of being 
exempted from the misfortune which befalls or 
threatens others?" 

This, in all probability, was the sentiment that 
produced pleasure ; as it must also be the latent 
source of the intense interest people take in news- 
papers. I often feel ashamed of the eagerness 
with which I read something headed with " Fearful 
Calamity." 

" I should like to know," he goes on, "what passes 
in the minds of other people, and particularly of 
those who have a humane feeling heart, when they 
are surprised by important, and, at the same time, 

' ' There is something in the misfortunes of our best friends which 
does not displease us." 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 295 

afflicting intelligence. However, I apprehend that 
most of them either do not pay proper attention 
to situations of that kind, or are too anxious 
to hide their feelings from others, and, perhaps, 
from themselves." 

Happily for the regular course of human affairs 
in general, and the sanity of many human minds 
in particular, people are likely to be too much 
engrossed by considering the external circumstance, 
with which they are concerned, to turn within, in 
order to anatomise and speculate upon the feelings 
it excites. If this were their habit, the reading of 
a daily newspaper would occupy the greater part 
of the day, from the self-observation it would 
promote on the thoughts and feelings which its 
details of crime and misery would produce. 

Lavater sets off on his journey to visit his sick 
friend, taking with him the New Testament, in 
order to select from it some passages to read to 
him. " I took it out of my pocket and opened it. 
The first passage that struck me was, ' Whatsoever 
ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the 
Lord Jesus.'" He comments on this a while, and 
then proceeds : " We came to a farrier's. ' We 



296 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

must stop here,' said the postilion, f the horses' 
shoes must be fastened, and one which is lost 
replaced.' 

u Impatience ! impatience ! how busy wast thou 
in my heart. I hesitated whether I should not 
get out and walk, as we were only one league 
distant from the abode of my friend. At last, 
being told that we should not stop above a quarter 
of an hour, I resolved to remain in the carriage/' 
He then takes out his memorandum-book, and 
continues his journal. It would seem that the 
business at the farrier's was greatly prolonged, for 
the journal records that he exclaimed, "Well, 
postilion, have you not done yet ? You make it 
d d long!" 

This was a delinquency of speech that was likely 
to awaken remorse. " Like a flash of lightning, it 
darted through my soul, ' Whatsoever ye do in word 
or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus' No ! 
no ! I cannot hide it from myself; I do not for a 
single hour continue to think, to act, and to talk 
like a Christian !" 

We may pass over a great deal of sentimentality, 
connected with the meeting between him and' his 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 297 

friend. The poor man was in a dying state, and 
departed in the course of the night. A very 
minute account is recorded in the journal, of 
the effect which his death had upon Lavater ; and 
which, though affectionate, and I daresay sincere, 
would have no interest here. It may be enough 
to say on this part of the subject, that, though his 
love for his deceased friend evinced itself in the 
most pathetic language, whilst he stood over 
his lifeless remains, the variableness of his 
nature affected him with different emotions soon 
after — emotions of dread, which he thus alludes 
to:— 

" Being quite alone, one pair of stairs higher 
than the corpse, I was seized with such horror 
that I hardly ventured to lift up my eyes, and to 
leave off writing ; I hesitated whether I should 
extinguish the candle or not." Descanting for 
a short time upon this weakness of mind, he 
states : — " I grew a little more composed, rose 
up, undressed myself, extinguished the fire, and 
went to bed. Oh, how much had I to think, 
to feel, and to pray ! However, I was tired, and 
fell asleep." He wakes the next morning with 



298 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

feelings and reflections, which supply ample 
materials for some two or three pages of the 
journal ; which, he says, — " I continued thus far. 
I cannot but confess, though reluctantly, that 
love of diversion and a secret aversion from 
praying, prompted me to do so. I would rather 
write down, and confess all my follies ; but no, 
not all— I never would confess them all — I have 
no true desire to mend my life. My better 
feelings, my good resolutions, and my virtues, all 
depend on accidental and external circumstances ; 
and even these circumstances frequently lose their 
efficacy, after a few minutes. I will not write 
a word more ; I will lay down the pen, and pray ; 
will pray, because I have a secret aversion to 
doing it." This acknowledgment, as might be 
expected, is met with great consternation : — 
" What a horrid thought ! I walked up and 
down the room ; began to sigh repeatedly, and 
to be afflicted on account of the stubbornness and 
inconstancy of my heart 

11 O merciful God," I said, " why am I so averse 
to conversing with Thee ? Shall my heart ever 
remain cold ? Oh, when shall I be enabled 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 299 

to confide in my feelings ?" Here we have a clue 
to the error in which this poor man was so closely 
enfolded. He sees the mistake of permitting 
his good resolutions, his virtues, &c, to depend 
upon accidental and external circumstances, and 
how even those circumstances lose their efficacy 
after a few minutes ; and yet he here yearns 
for ability to confide in his feelings, that is to 
say, in the impressionable part of his nature, which 
is the most likely to be the sport of external 
circumstances. The plain intelligible fact is, 
that in a world, and in a nature like ours, where 
external influences are perpetually acting upon 
the emotional side of our strange, mixed, 
mysterious being, we must place our dependence 
upon something more steadfast and immutable 
than our feelings. "To be sure," would be the 
reply of the religious professor. "You must 
depend upon religion as your guide, your com- 
forter, your all in all." 

" I am quite ready to agree to. this," says the 
tried and troubled soul. " But, nevertheless, your 
answer is too vague. You must describe to me 
what you mean by religion." I shall not meddle 



300 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

with the response which this remark would elicit. 
Any one who desires to be informed on that 
point, merely as a matter of curiosity, I have only 
to direct to the first religious tract which hap- 
pens to fall in his way from a regular orthodox 
quarter ; and he will meet with the usual stereo- 
typed phrases in which religion is described and 
taught. 

But, to an earnest and sincere inquirer after 
divine truth, which I take to mean something 
different from religion, — as religion is commonly 
understood, at least, — I will offer a reply which is 
worth considering with some attention. I take it 
from the well-known work of Barclay, entitled, 
"An Apology for the True Christian Divinity," 
of which Sir James Mackintosh observes, that " It 
is a masterpiece of ingenious reasoning, and a 
model of argumentative composition : which ex- 
torted praise from Bayle, one of the most acute 
and least fanatical of men." * 

I shall prefix to the extract I am about to 
make, this text from St Paul's Epistle to Titus, 
(chap. ii. ii, 12) : — " The grace of God that bringeth 

* Mackintosh's " Revolution in England," p. 169. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 30 1 

salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us, 
that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we 
should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this 
present world." 

"This grace," says Barclay, "the Scripture 
expresses by several names; as, the seed of the 
kingdom ;* the light that makes all things 
manifest ; *f* the Word of God ; % or manifestation 
of the Spirit given to profit withal ; a talent ; § 
a little leaven ; || the Gospel preached to every 
creature. ^[ 

" By this seed, grace, or Word of God, I under- 
stand a spiritual, heavenly principle, which of its 
own nature draws and inclines to God. And 
as every unrighteous action is witnessed against, 
and reproved by this principle ; so, by such 
actions it is hurt and wounded, and flees from 
them, even as the flesh of man flees from that 
which is of a contrary nature to it. 

" As this principle is received into the heart, 
and suffered to bring forth its natural and proper 
effect, that spiritual birth of which the Scripture 

* Matt. xiii. 18, 19. t Eph. v. 13. % Rom. x. 17 ; 1 Cor. xi. 7. 
§ Matt. xxv. 15. II Matt. xiii. 33. IT Col. i. 23. 



302 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

makes so much mention, calling it, 'the new 
man;' 'Christ within, the hope of glory,' &c, 
comes to be formed and raised." He describes the 
operation of this principle in the heart, to depend 
in the first instance upon its not being opposed. 
"The working is of the grace, or principle," he 
. says, " and not of the man;" and it is a passive- 
ness rather than an act; though afterwards, as 
man is wrought upon, there is a will raised in him, 
by which he comes to be a co-worker with the 
grace. But the first step is not by man's work- 
ing ; but by his not contrary working." 

He illustrates this, by supposing the case of a 
man greatly diseased. " I suppose/' he says, 
" God, who is the Great Physician, not only to 
give this man physic, but to come and pour the 
remedy into his mouth ; and, as it were, to lay 
him in his bed." 

We may surely conceive this to be accomplished, 
when a man, tossed about as this poor Lavater 
was, with conflicting thoughts and feelings, and 
remembering the Scripture maxim, " Be still, and 
know that I am God" becomes still ; silences all 
the busy workings of his tumultuous emotions ; 






A Record of Facts and Feelings. 303 

and, guided by another encouraging scripture 
which says, " In returning and rest ye shall be 
saved ; in quietness and in confidence shall be 
your strength," * labours to be quiet, by standing 
firm and motionless as a rock against the surging 
billows of the fleshly nature. 

" But how is he to stand thus firm, and silent, 
and motionless," it will be asked, " against these 
surging billows that are part and parcel of his own 
nature ?" I grant that it is extremely difficult ; but 

I know it is not impossible. The repetition of 
a brief prayer, (the briefer the better,) two words, 

II Lord, help," " Lord, quiet," " Lord, still me," ear- 
nestly and constantly repeated, and always with a 
will for the calmness asked for ; (if this is wanting, 
the whole affair is a mockery, and a sham), — this, 
sustained as long as possible, "t" will act as medicine 
administered by God himself; or, as Barclay says, 

* Isaiah xxx. 15. 

t I can say, and that under the solemn consciousness that I speak 
in the presence of God, that, in circumstances of extreme trial, many- 
years ago, this method of short and simple supplication was 
practised by me, — not for hours only,— but for days, weeks, months 
together, in my waking hours, with scarcely any cessation, 
except when I had to take my meals, or to receive visits from my 
friends. I could not have gone through what I had to undergo 
without the help thus obtained. 



304 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

" God comes and pours the remedy into the sick 
man's mouth; and, as it were, lays him upon his 
bed." " And thus, if the man is but passive," he 
proceeds, "the remedy will necessarily work its 
effect. But if he be stubborn and untoward, and 
will needs rise up, and go forth into the cold, or 
eat such fruits as are hurtful to him, while the 
medicine should operate ; then, though of its own 
nature, it tendeth to cure him, yet it will prove 
destructive to him, because of the obstructions it 
meets with." 

"But what is the medicine," it may be asked, 
"that God administers?" To this we may 
reply, It is impressions made upon the mind, — not 
in long-winded speeches, — such as poor Lavater 
makes to himself, by the page together in his 
journal ; but by gleams of light. 

" A man should learn to detect and watch that 
gleam of light which flashes across his mind from 
within, more than the lustre of the firmament 
of bards and sages." * 

I remember, that nearly fifty years ago, long 
before I had any knowledge even of the usual 

* Emerson, " Essay on Self- Reliance." 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 305 

teaching of evangelical preachers, such as Mr 

Simeon ; when, in fact, the whole of my religion 

stood in the light of nature ; upon an occasion 

(and oh, how manifold, and how trying were 

such occasions !) in which I was tossed and torn 

by the whirling anguish of multitudinous and 

opposing thoughts, a voice within me said, 

" Don't talk ; go by glimpses and glances" 

I had not faith enough — nor experience to 

give faith — nor self-control enough, to resolutely 

stop the noise and tumult of my thoughts, and 

wait for the quiet, gentle gleams of light to 

which I was thus divinely directed ; so I made 

nothing of them. But I felt their power so far 

as this : that I saw they were truths, and that 

it was in this way of inward shining, that divine 

truth was imparted. For, if " God is Light/' 

as Scripture tells us, and also teaches us to say, 

" With Thee is the fountain of light, and in Thy 

light shall we see light," how should he speak to, 

and instruct the soul, but by giving it light ? And 

in order to perceive this soft and delicate interior 

illumination, what quiet and watchful attention is 

necessary ! What an inward silencing, and turn- 

U 



306 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

ing away from that babble of the tongue, which 
seldom talks less to the purpose than when, under 
the notion of instructing us in the way of righteous- 
ness, it sets us upon talking over our thoughts, 
words, and deeds, after the fashion in which Lava- 
ter probes and wearies himself, though, poor soul, 
with the best intention. 

The first duty of man in his religious acts, Bar- 
clay says, is to wait ttpon God for the help of His 
good Spirit. And this act of waiting is in itself 
an act of silence and passivity. He then illustrates 
the matter, as it seems to me, very happily : " He 
that cometh to learn of a master," he says, " if he 
expect to hear his master, and be instructed by 
him, must not be continually speaking of the 
matter to be taught,* and never be quiet ; other- 
wise how shall his master have time to instruct 
him ? Yea, though the scholar were never so 
earnest to learn the science, yet would the master 
have reason to reprove him as untoward and in- 
docile, if he would always be meddling of himself, 
and still speaking, and not patiently wait to hear 
his master instructing and teaching him." 

* As in Lavater's case, for instance. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 307 

But it is time to close these quotations, and to 
return to our journalist, whom we left lamenting 
that " he could not confide in his feelings." The 
funeral of his deceased friend over, he returns 
home. " I travelled back," ho says, " mournful, 
and yet replete with reviving and pious resolutions. 

(( I came to an inn, wholly occupied with medi- 
tations on death and my own mortality. Four 
people were sitting in the room. - Savage souls,' 
thought I, (they were talking in a low, vulgar 
manner,) ' how deeply are you immersed in night 
and insensibility. Ye are mortals, like myself, — 
mortals like my friend, — and subject to death as 
well as we ; but far distant from reflecting on 
death and eternity. Deplorable beings, who will 
remove the veil from your eyes?' This I said 
within myself, and was much exasperated at every 
posture, at every look, at every gesture and word 
of theirs." 

Everything appertaining to these hapless stran- 
gers, seems to excite his ire ; and he says that he 
was almost tempted to read them a severe lecture. 

" However, the seriousness of my own situation 
soon led me back again to myself; I sent up to 



308 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

Heaven, in their behalf, a few not very humble 
sighs. ' O God ! open the eyes of these unen- 
lightened people !'" 

It is a curious feature in the conduct of religious 
people on the subject of prayer, that they will 
sometimes, (perhaps unconsciously,) _/z?r off, — I can 
really use no other expression, — a perfect cannonade 
of anger, against some one present who is under 
their displeasure, — and this when on their knees, 
and professing to be engaged in an act, which, of 
all others, demands freedom from every bitter 
thought. At the time when I was under the in- 
fluence of the Irvingites at Cambridge, and, pros- 
trated by illness, was lying on my sofa, seeking 
for nothing, God knows ! but peace of mind, and 
the " meekness of wisdom " that gives it, I was 
visited by a person very high in the religious 
world as an evangelical minister. He offered me 
the visit ; for, knowing his abhorrence of the 
Irvingites, and that he was aware of my acquaint- 
ance with them, I should never have asked to see 
him. Indeed, had it been possible, without dis- 
courtsey, to have declined his visit, I should have 
done so ; under an idea that he proposed it with 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 309 

a view of administering a homily for my heresy, 
as he would call it, which turned out to be the 
case. I listened quietly to all he had to say, which, 
having finished, he said : — 

" And now, I hope, you are convinced of your 
error in going after strange doctrines ; and are 
prepared to return to the simplicity of scriptural 
truth ?" As this was put in the form of a question, 
and I was not disposed to answer it with the 
submissive assent he expected, I merely replied, 
" That I was not yet convinced that the persons he 
censured so harshly, altogether deserved it ; and 
until I was satisfied of their being deluded them- 
selves and deluding me, I would rather let things 
remain as they were." His only reply to this was, 
"Do you wish me to go to prayer?" If I had 
spoken the real feelings of my heart on this point, 
I should have said, " By no means, for I see clearly 
that you are not in a proper frame of mind to 
pray." But I did not feel equal to the effort of 
opposing him, and so I bent my head in acqui- 
escence with his proposal. 

I wished very sincerely that I had not done so, 
when he gave forth a tirade of what, as far as the 



3 1 o The Solace of a Solitaire ; 

spirit that prompted them was concerned, might 
truly be called maledictions, instead of petitions. 
" That the eyes of this Thy creature, now on the 
brink of eternity, may be opened before it be too 
late," I remember was the prevailing strain ; and 
though I do not recollect that " the gulf of hell " 
was, in so many words, specified as the impending 
danger which he saw before me, and prayed (God 
save the mark !) that I might be delivered from, 
yet the tone of his voice, quivering with rage, be- 
trayed the rancour to which he was thus giving 
vent. 

He has been in eternity himself for more than 
thirty years, and knows better now than he did 
in the days of his flesh, the blessed, merciful, and 
precious loving-kindness of Him, whose wrath he 
took such pains to scare me with. I always think, 
when I hear or read these fierce denunciations on 
the part of preachers and teachers, or of anybody 
else for that matter, against those of their fellow- 
creatures who dare to think for themselves on 
religious matters, and the certain doom of everlast- 
ing destruction which they foretell in the wrath of 
God which is to pass upon them, how overpowering 



A Record of Facts and Feelings, 3 1 1 

will be the amazement of these furious bigots, 
when they are met in their new state of being 
with a sight and sense of the nature of God — as 
Love ! No wrath, no particle of an angry feeling, 
not an atom of the fearful indignation against lost 
human nature, which they have been preaching 
and teaching, and doing their best to shake over 
people's heads as an impending avalanche ; but, in 
its stead, Love, sweet, gentle, tender, compassion- 
ate, and as full of mercy as it is of exceeding 
purity and simplicity. Truly, I think that, at that 
moment, the first feeling of these people will be 
intense hatred of their own mistakes, their own 
bigotry, their own evil passions, of pride, and envy, 
and arrogant assumption, which, under the notion 
of zeal, they have permitted to live and act in the 
garb of religion. But enough ; we will return to 
our journalist, whom we left engaged in sending 
up to heaven, in behalf of the " savage souls " he 
fell in with at the inn, " a few not very humble 
sighs." 

" I went to the corner of the room," he goes on 
to say, "and taking the New Testament out of 
my pocket, read a little in it." Under the cir- 



312 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

cumstances, it would seem to have been wiser to 
have read the newspaper. As was to be expected, 
he could get but little good out of his occupation, 
" After reading a short time," he states, " I grew 
angry at the noise these people made, and desired 
the landlord to let me have a room to myself. 
Having conducted me to one, he showed me his 
son's study. ' My son,' said he, 'is a surgeon, and 
a great adept in anatomy/ He then pressed me 
to see his collection of skeletons, &c. 

" I did not much like it at first ; however, as 
soon as I entered the room and beheld the drawers, 
I was much pleased, and looked upon that incident 
as sent by Providence. What disgusted me most, 
was the garrulity of the landlord, and his repeating 
ever and anon, how sorry he was that his son was 
not present. I wished to be left alone. In order 
to get rid of him, I inquired whether he would not 
give me leave to examine the books ? ' Certainly.' 
He did not, however, guess at my drift. I took a 
book from the shelf, turning over its leaves, and 
put it again in its former place. I then took down 
another with anatomical tables, asking him whether 
I might take it with me into my room. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 313 

'" I should be welcome to stay in the room, and 
peruse it there, as long as I should like, if it would 
be more convenient/ said he, with great kindness, 
and left me. I laid the book down, took pencil 
and paper, and drew a skull as well as I could after 
one which I found in the room. Having finished 
my drawing, I perceived that the skull could be 
taken off the skeleton ; so I took it down, and held 
it in my hand some time." 

His meditations over this grim object, as well as 
some he indulges in over some anatomical subjects 
preserved in spirits, are suggestive, but too long to 
be quoted. 

" It came into my mind," he says, " to provide 
myself with a human skull ; — the sight of it will 
certainly remind me frequently most powerfully 
of my mortality, — I shall then more frequently 
act wiser, and with more seriousness, and be less 
capable to forget the vow I made at the coffin 
of my friend." 

The feelings and the senses — these seem to be 
the monitors he seeks. Surely there is more wis- 
dom in the asceticism which aims at destroying 
the dominion of these seductive despots — for such 



3 1 4 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

they too certainly are — in the tyrannic sway with 
which they hold poor mortals in captivity. 

On preferring a request to the landlord for a 
skull, he is presented with a " beautiful white one." 

" Never has any gift afforded me so much plea- 
sure as this skull. I was ready to embrace the 
landlord out of gratitude." The landlord, as well 
he might be, is astonished at witnessing so much 
delight in such a ghastly gift. " ' I never saw 
anything so odd,' said he; 'to rejoice in such a 
manner at a skull ! Pray, sir, tell me the reason 
of it ? ' 'I have/ said I, abruptly, ' lost a friend a 
few days ago ; and I wish never to lose sight of 
my own mortality. That skull there, which you 
were so kind to give me, shall be my remem- 
brancer.' " 

The common-sense landlord observes, that " if 
this is the only motive it will soon wear off," — 
making at the same time a Latin quotation signify- 
ing that " ' there is no kind of grief which time will 
not extinguish/ This reply made me smile, and 
at the same time staggered me, I took up the 
skull, went to my room, and continued my journal. " 

The next day he returns home, and relates that 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 3 1 5 

he spoke of his friend's decease to his wife " with- 
out shedding a tear, and without feeling that lively 
emotion with which I had left his grave." 

The fact is, that he finds, as, through mercy, we 
all of us find, that our emotions of pain are not 
designed to be permanent, but, like all else that 
relates to our impressions on the side of feeling, 
are to be left to follow their natural course into 
decline and oblivion. For 

" What is this passing scene ? — 
A peevish April day, — 
A little sun, a little rain ; 
And then night sweeps along the plain, 
And all things pass away." * 

With which soberising reflection we will take our 
leave of Lavater. 

* Kirke White. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

r I ^HE details of every newspaper of every day 
are nothing less than sermons to those who 
regard the course of circumstances as indicating 
the ever-present, ever-active agency of God. It is 
sad that, for the most part, they fall powerless in 
making any deep and permanent impression. The 
minds of the usual readers of these records of living 
history, are too much engrossed with the things of 
time and sense which have a direct and immediate 
reference to their own individual interest, to allow 
of their pausing over the incidents which have no 
bearing upon these, although they may be fraught 
with materials the most suggestive of valuable and 
instructive reflection. 

It happens, however, that once in a while an 
event occurs, so stamped with circumstances of an 
appalling character, and circumstances, too, which 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 317 

are of a kind to link us with the incident by the 
common chain that binds humanity together, that 
we are struck as by an electric shock, and, let 
our hindrances to reflection be what they may, 
they are for a time — and with some of us, for a 
long time — overpowered by the solemnity of the 
thoughts which are thus awakened within us. 

Of this kind is the fearful tragedy of the recent 
railway accident at Abergele. It is difficult to 
conceive a case more loaded with striking contrasts, 
— between life luxuriating in the vivacity of exist- 
ence, and floating in a serene ocean of calm enjoy- 
ment, — and death, sudden, strange, overwhelming, 
irresistible, submerging them in a moment in a 
vortex of horror. Oh, voice of wisdom ! well hast 
thou counselled us to "-boast not of to-morrow, for 
we know not what a day may bring forth ! " * 
To-morrow ! Alas ! — 

" In what far country does to-morrow lie ? " 

Yet, where is the heart that does not expatiate on 
to-morrow's visionary pleasures ? and when is this 
mental feeding on the provender of fancy more 
indulged in, than when the body — fancy's faithful 

* Proverbs xxvii. I. 



o 



1 8 1 he Solace of a Solitaire : 



minister and comrade — is going forth in rapid 
motion, assimilating with the outgoings of the 
mind ? 

Who of us is there, possessed of experience 
enough to remember the emotions which com- 
monly accompany a journey, — who cannot sym- 
pathise with the enchanting excitement which 
doubtless dilated many a heart amongst that com- 
pany, unconsciously rushing to the close of every 
source of earthly sensibility ? What dreams of 
enjoyment — different, no doubt, in kind and in de- 
gree, but in their nature adapted to the recipients 
of them — floated through the imaginations of those 
doomed travellers ! Can we not picture to our- 
selves how these rainbow tints of hope and expec- 
tation borrowed unusual brightness from the radi- 
ance of surrounding nature ? and how, under the 
feeling of security and ease, the subjects of these 
gratifying sensations drank in the delicious vivacity 
of changing scenes as they bounded along their 
way ? No matter that they were strangers, for the 
most part, to each other : they had met as fellow- 
creatures, bent upon a common purpose, and that 
a purpose of gratification to the allowable wills 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 3 1 9 

and wishes of their nature. Can we not, beyond 
all this, imagine the buoyant happiness of the 
young ones of the party ? Their anticipations of 
pleasure, their golden visions, their boundless hopes 
and expectations, from a world so full of joy. Can 
we not conceive that even the aged would forget 
for a little interval their burden of years and sor- 
rows, and yield themselves willingly to the sooth- 
ing influence which change of scene and circum- 
stances so often diffuses over wearied and declining 
life ? For the moment — perhaps for the immediate 
moment — a party more exempt from the perturb- 
ing agitations of life's daily discords it might have 
been hard to find. But what have mortals to do 
with happiness, or with ease, or with pleasure, or 
with any cup of earthly satisfaction that is put into 
their hands, but just to touch it with their lips, and 
put it from them ? In a moment, in the twinkling 
of an eye, the visions of joy, the radiance of na- 
ture, the buoyant hopes and expectations which 
danced upon the future as the ground of paradise, 
life — life itself, the root and source of all this rap- 
ture — is fearfully crushed out of them ! Time is 
not found for the utterance of a cry. The furious 



320 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

forces of inevitable destruction come down like an 
avalanche on these hapless beings, and extinguish 
the existence with which but the moment before, 
they were filled to the brim. True indeed, is the 
word of the afflicted patriarch in relation to the 
denizens of the world at large as well as to himself. 
For how many are there, besides this severely and 
suddenly visited company, who might say with him 
and with them, " My days are past, — my pur- 
poses are broken off, even the thoughts of my 
heart." * How many indeed ! and what is the 
instinctive language from the lips of any, and all of 
us, who are the lookers-on upon this awful catas- 
trophe — what can it be, but that of the prophet, 
" Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God 
of Israel, the Saviour." f To thus much of astonish- 
ment and dismay, the most devout amongst us 
may be allowed to give utterance, but to nothing 
in the shape of doubt — nothing that ignorantly 
presumes to question the wisdom and the mercy 
that dwell in the darkness, which, as Scripture tells 
us, it pleases God to " make His secret place," 
(Psalm xviii. 12.) 

* Job xvii. IX. t Isaiah xlv. 15. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 32 1 

It is true that nature, — poor, ignorant nature, 
marvels at the small account that seems to be 
made of her most highly-prized and best-loved 
gift of life. And if this life were all, it would be 
strange indeed, to find it so often treated as a 
thing of nought. But there is a much wiser guide 
than nature near us, and one who is given as the 
rectifier of nature ; and when the first concussion 
to thought and feeling given by this fearful event 
has subsided, the appointed regulator of the mind 
will enable it to perceive with impressive earnest- 
ness, how precarious is the tenure by which many 
of us hold this cherished life. Yes, we shall be 
constrained to feel as a solemn fact, what we may 
have hitherto regarded as a mere platitude, or an 
epigrammatic saying, that " Man proposes, but 
God disposes." We shall knozv that He does 
dispose of us as it pleaseth Him. We shall have 
it confirmed to us that " in the midst of life, we 
are in death," and the lesson left with us will 
be that profitable one given forth as a warning 
by the apostle which tells us that " the day of the 
Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when 

they shall say, Peace and safety ; then sudden 

x 



322 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a 
woman with child ; and they shall not escape."* 
But whilst we make this practical application to 
ourselves, we will venture to believe that the good 
Spirit that suggests it will infuse into our hearts 
a hope full of consolation, touching those so sud- 
denly cut off from the land of the living. There 
is much, in truth, for the devout and thoughtful 
mind to repose upon, in considering how many 
and how severe might be the trials and temptations 
looming in the future of all these victims of unfore- 
seen destruction, from which they are now deli- 
vered. Who among us, that has been often and 
sharply exercised with spiritual conflict, and is 
gifted with inclination to study and understand 
the lessons of experience, but would think it, upon 
the whole, a benefit to die ? What says the poet 
on that point ? 

" To die is to begin to live ; 
It is to end an old, stale, weary work, 
And to commence a newer and a better." f 

" Is not death," says Niebuhr, " when freely 
chosen and prepared for, the most solemn and 

* i Thess. v. 2, 3. + Beaumont and Fletcher. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 323 

beautiful thing to which life can aspire ? " It 
may be so, it will be replied, but these poor suf- 
ferers had no time granted them for choice or 
preparation. 

It is not for any of us to judge of their respective 
fitness or unfitness for their mighty transit into 
another state of being. Doubtless, there were 
amongst them diversities of condition, as it re- 
garded their interior nature. But with that we 
have nothing to do. To their own master they 
must stand or fall. It is with their condition as 
our fellow-creatures that we have alone to do, and 
much to do in a way of sympathising faith and 
hope, and in those tender sentiments which our 
common humanity inspires. Under these in- 
fluences we may be permitted to believe that the 
stroke by which they fell was a deliverance from 
evil. We have but to look at the nature which 
revelation teaches us to ascribe to the Great Being, 
without whose agency " not a sparrow falls to the 
ground," and in whose sight " the very hairs of our 
head are numbered," to recognise it as the 
Fountain of Love. "God is Love;"* and " Oh, 

* 1 John iv. 8. 



324 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

how sweet is Love!" says an old divine of the 
Puritan school. Let us for a brief interval listen 
to these thoughts of his upon the most precious of 
all our human emotions. 

" Oh, how sweet is Love ! how pleasant is its 
nature ! how takingly does it behave itself in every 
condition, upon every occasion, to every person, 
and about every thing! How tenderly, how 
readily doth it help and serve the meanest ! How 
patiently, how meekly doth it bear all things, 
either from God or man ! How doth it excuse 
and cover over that which seemeth not to be ex- 
cusable, nor fit to be covered ! How kind it is in 
its interpretation concerning faults ! It never 
over-chargeth ; it never grates upon the spirit of 
those whom it reprehends. It never hardens, it 
never provokes, but carries a meltingness and 
power of conviction with it. This is the nature of 
God." Now, these are not words without meaning, 
packed together to make a sentence ; but the 
outcome of a soul filled to its capacity of recep- 
tion with a living sense of the blessed reality on 
which it expatiates. If the creature could thus, 
in the fulness of his joy, exalt the loving-kindness 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 325 • 

of the Creator; if the mere spray from the fountain 
is thus redolent of rapture, what must be the In- 
finite Source itself, but such as "eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart 
of man to conceive." 

Looking here, we behold no trace of what only 
seems strange and shocking to the narrow views 
of the earthly part, in the catastrophe we are con- 
sidering. Unquestionably, to the eye that looks 
chiefly to material objects, it is shocking to con- 
template those disfigured remnants of humanity. 
It is shocking to pause there, and sigh over the 
devastation wrought upon God's wondrous work- 
manship, and with the eye of imagination to re- 
gard the wreck, the frightful wreck, of those bodies 
so " fearfully and wonderfully made," but a few 
hours before, instinct in every part with human life, 
and with the intelligence of humanity, but now 
a charred and blackened mass, so shapeless and 
disfigured that not a form can be found in it, to be 
decently shrouded in the habiliments of the grave. 
This is shocking ; but let us pass by that painful, 
that hideous aspect of the matter. To the eye of 
faith it has another and a better one ; for that is 



326 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

the eye that looks beyond the ruined heap of 
mortality that lies out yonder. It remembers that 
in their own appointed tabernacle, spirits inhabited 
that undistinguishable mass, and though the ve- 
hicles which held them are transmuted into ashes, 
they themselves yet live, for spirits cannot die. 
And might not some of these, like birds released 
from captivity, exulting in the ecstasy of freedom 
so new and so enchanting, mount upwards to their 
Source, singing hallelujah to the Giver of their 
new-born, beautiful, and blessed life ! To many 
of their dear ones left behind, the thought of them 
as a blackened mass, in the place of the form so 
pleasant and so loved, may as yet, and for a long 
time to come, be agonising ; but only let us place 
ourselves in a position of mind to consider what 
any and every dead body presents to the eye of 
the beholder, after it has lain for one year in the 
grave, and the sentiment of recoil will be much 
the same in both cases. In the one instance, pro- 
bably, the eyes were reverently closed by loving 
hands, and the limbs composed and habited in 
clothing fitted to give the semblance of tranquil 
decency to dust and ashes. But this senseless 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 327 

form is dust and ashes still ; no other, and no 
better than the dust and ashes gathered from the 
ruins of the railway accident. The only differ- 
ence is, that in the one case the transmutation was 
speedy and immediate, in the other it was slower 
and more gradual ; but with neither of them does 
our higher being hold communion. That lies in 
the realms of thought. And what says a great 
master in that kingdom ? I will conclude this 
dissertation in his words, for none that I can give 
you are so well worth hearing : " When the act 
of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look 
at ourselves in the light of thought, we discover 
that our life is embosomed in beauty. . . . Behind 
us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as 
clouds do afar off. It is only the finite that has 
wrought and suffered ; the infinite lies stretched 
in smiling repose." * 

* Emerson's Essay on Spiritual Laws. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

A LL things must find a time to end ; and in- 
creasing infirmities, with an approach to 
the borders of fourscore, remind me that finality- 
is hovering over me. It seems desirable therefore, 
that I should conclude this occupation; which has 
furnished me with some pleasant, and, I venture 
to believe, not unprofitable hours. 

I am quite aware, that in these days of sensa- 
tional literature, such a work as this is likely to 
meet with but a limited circle of readers. This 
does not in the least discourage me ; for I entirely 
hold with the sentiments of a certain author, (whose 
name I forget,) which he expresses by saying, " I 
would rather be read a hundred times by one 
person, than but once by a hundred. 5 ' 

To those who reflect upon what they read, I 
believe that any production is interesting, that 
exhibits a record of the vicissitudes of human 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 329 

experience ; and which, like the variations of a 
weather-glass, are the out-showing of the conflict- 
ing elements of events and circumstances that 
agitate mortal existence. These form the invis- 
ible, but most influential surroundings of human 
beings ; giving to every individual amongst them, 
a history, — of course, the history which most 
abounds with incident will be the most popular ; 
for grown children, like growing ones, crave for 
"a story." 

An amusing anecdote is told of Rowland Hill 
on this point. He had been preaching on one 
occasion to an inattentive congregation, coughs 
and blowing of noses were so incessant, that he 
could obtain no kind of dominion over the hubbub 
that prevailed ; at last, he suddenly broke out with 
the words. 

« Last Monday " 

In a moment the hush of death came over the 
assembly. You might have heard a pin drop ! — 
Having thus opened his way to a hearing, he 
finished his sentence by adding — "a man was 
hanged at Tyburn ; " and then proceeded to im- 
prove the opportunity, by showing them how open 



330 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

their ears and their attention were to anything 
that engaged their curiosity ; whilst to that which 
was to benefit their souls, they were as lifeless as 
so many corpses. 

But to return for a brief interval to this work of 
mine, which I am about to close. I am sensible 
that there is much in it which will be disputed, as 
it regards the small account I seem to make of the 
body which it has pleased the wisdom of God to 
bestow upon us, and which it will be said (and justly 
enough) that we must of necessity use in His service 
as well as in any other work in which we find 
ourselves engaged. I do not for a moment dispute 
this. On the contrary, I am well assured that the 
body is so essentially connected with the soul, 
that it is impossible to help the one without seek- 
ing assistance from the other. 

There is a text in the book of Revelations, from 
which it may seem fanciful to extract the spiritual 
meaning, which I often do ; but which at the 
hazard of not being understood, and possibly, of 
being laughed at, I will give. It is this, "and the 
earth helped the woman ; " * " and what, in the 

* Rev. xii. 16. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 331 

name of common sense, are you going to make of 
this ? " I hear you say. Well, before I go into any 
explanation of what certainly looks like a riddle, 
let me ask you a question. 

Did you never, in moments of strong excitement 
(perhaps in the season of youth, rather than at a 
more advanced period) — did you never, in order 
to prevent your nature from breaking out into a 
paroxysm of tears, or angry words, or some sort of 
demonstration, — instinctively bite your lips, or 
press both hands upon the arms of your chair, or 
upon the table — or, in short, have you not set 
your earth, which is your body, — to "help the 
woman," which is your soul, (at least both poetry 
and piety speak of it as of the feminine gender,) 
and thus tried to be still and quiet, much as nurses 
do, when a child is about to break out into a roar ! 
They divert the mind of the child from its own 
particular point of disturbance by calling upon it 
to look at something else. " See here, — look there," 
they cry — and why ? Because it is a law of the 
mind that it cannot possibly be engrossed with 
more than one thing at a time. I do not mean 
that the nurse-maids act on metaphysical grounds, 



332 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

but that it is an instinct with them, to escape the 
bother of the child's crying, by calling its attention 
to something else, and it is usually for the moment 
effectual ; just as the sensation of the bitten lip 
overpowers the sensation of anger or any other 
strong emotion, and hinders it from coming forth 
in words. 

I am reminded here of a case in point. It is 
mentioned in the memoirs of Miss Aiken. I must 
go a little out of the way to bring out the bearing 
which it has upon what we are speaking about. 
But as the passage which leads to it is full of truth, 
I will quote it at length. She is speaking of the 
inferior grade, as it respects themselves and all 
their belongings, in which society places woman. 

" Society," she says, " wrongs us, where the laws 
do not. The life of a woman is esteemed of less 
value than that of a man. Juries of men are very 
reluctant to punish the slayer of his wife as a 
murderer ; her testimony is under-valued ; men 
juries often discredit her evidence against a worse 
than murderer. She is wounded by the privileged 
insolence of masculine discourse. ' Woman and 
fool,' says spiteful Pope, and dunces echo him. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 333 

Any feeble-minded man is an ' old woman.' 
Fathers cry out to their boys in petticoats, not to 
care what their elder sisters say to them. These, 
and the like insults when my blood was hotter 
than now it is, have cost me many a bitten lip." * 

As I do not wish to have it supposed that the 
rights, or supposed rights of my sex affect me as 
strongly as, in this passage, they seem to have 
affected Miss Aiken ; and the occasion offers scope 
for a few remarks, which I may never have another 
opportunity of making, I will here venture to 
digress for a few moments, in order to relieve my 
mind of some thoughts on the vexed question 
touching woman's position in human affairs, and 
her claim to take a higher place and a more active 
part in them than is customary: Although, as one 
of the sex, it concerns myself, I confess that I 
have no sympathy in the efforts made in some 
quarters, to raise us in the scale of public position 
and its privileges. And I do not say this on the 
ground (though it is a safe and tenable stand- 
point) of my being an old woman, and not likely 
to be considered of any importance in any way, 

* " Memoirs of Lucy Aiken," by Mr La Breton, p. 369. 



334 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

except to my old cat, whose welfare greatly de- 
pends upon my interest in his behalf; but I speak 
on the ground of its being a manifest ordination of 
Providence, that the two sexes should take different 
departments in human affairs. And, as greater 
strength of body is man's distinction, and also, in 
general, greater vigour of mind, than falls to the 
share of woman ; as there are, also, domestic cir- 
cumstances of necessary occurrence which render 
it sometimes impossible for women to be agents on 
the stage of public affairs, and which, at all times, 
would make it an incongruity that they should do 
so ; — the very voice of Nature, as well as of Provi- 
dence, testifies against her attempting to share 
with man in the popular privileges which he holds 
in his own hands of taking a part in public affairs. 
I do not say that there may not be found many 
women endowed with masculine minds, and a 
measure of judgment calculated to make them 
more efficient in questions of a political kind than 
some of the men who have the discussion and 
management of them. But this is the exception, 
and not the rule. That, without any exception, 
let a woman's mental superiority be what it may, 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 335 

points to her exercising her sway in the atmo- 
sphere of home. The duties which demand ser- 
vice here are different in kind from those which 
call for the exertions of men. But it is a differ- 
ence which tends to act with immense advantage 
on the side of women. For what, I should like to 
know, is the value of skill in diplomacy, or oratory, 
or any exhibition of power abroad, compared with 
that which is exerted in rendering the fireside the 
scene of peace ? What boots it to any man that 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a skilful finan- 
cier, in comparison with the vast importance to 
his happiness which it is, that his wife should 
govern his household in a wise and economical 
way ? And for the right administration of affairs 
there, another sort of mental furniture is needed 
than that which might fit a woman to shine in the 
House of Commons, and of a far more precious kind. 
It is not difficult for women, any more than for 
men, to make a noise, by coming forward as lec- 
turers, or talkers, or doers, in a line that makes 
them popularly distinguished. A good stock of 
assurance, or, according to the definition of the 
great Lord Bacon as to what made an orator, " in 



336 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

the first place, boldness, in the second and third, 
still boldness," will carry human beings of both 
sexes to a great height of distinction in the line 
which they have chosen to act in. But in the 
" cool, sequestered vale of life," where woman's 
proper walk is to be traced, it is not boldness that 
is wanted, but a much better thing, and that is 
patience, — a virtue which never comes without 
associate virtues, when it comes in company with 
religion ; and if it does not come in connexion 
with that principle, it is not patience, but some- 
thing which, in its capacity of endurance, looks 
like it, but which, in its intrinsic nature, is quite 
another thing, for it is pride. Pride will help 
people to bear anything, rather than be overcome 
by it, because there is something mean and abject 
in being conquered ; but patience is a holy virtue, 
and one which brings in its train "meekness of 
wisdom," and a serene dignity of conduct, which 
renders the sway of the woman who is actuated by 
it in her daily domestic affairs, of vastly greater 
value than any other kind of sway she may exert. 
But I have got a long way from the point at which 
I set out, which was to endeavour at showing 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 337 

that it is my desire to evince all reverence for 
the help which our poor bodies are capable of 
rendering us, in our various conflicts with the things 
of time and sense. As I have somewhat more to 
say on that point, I will now return to it. With 
respect to the process of biting the lip, as an aid 
in repressing anger, of which Miss Aiken makes 
mention, I can say nothing from experience ; it 
being, unhappily, my habit rather to let out in 
language my sense of displeasure. But of the 
way in which " the earth can help the woman," or, 
to drop the metaphor, in which the body can be 
exceedingly helpful to the mind in relation to its 
devotional exercises, I can speak from long and 
certain experience. It is fit, however, that I should 
state that it is exclusively as it relates to the de- 
votional act, which Barclay describes as " waiting 
upon God," that the aid of the body, after the 
manner in which I am led to seek it, can be re- 
ceived. The manner in which it is used by the 
usual body of worshippers, is to employ it in kneel- 
ing, speaking, and singing ; against which acts, as 
testimonies of worship, I have nothing to say. 

But, in silent devotion, the first step necessary, 

Y 



338 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

is to bring the body as near to perfect stillness y as 
possible. 

" Then how is it possible to get any service out 
of it ?" you ask. Stay a moment, and I will tell 
you of a very powerful service which it will 
render, (better than biting the lip,) if you will 
but believe me ; and if you cannot take my 
word for it, — the next time you are greatly 
agitated, and want to get composed, — try it. 

In the first place, a position of rest must be 
taken ; that of reclining, I always find the most 
effectual ; then, the eyes must be closed ; but 
though closed, they can inwardly be fixed upon 
an imaginary point, and this is a great matter; 
for this fixedness of the eyes has a gradually in- 
creasing power of fixing or concentrating the mind. 

In Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire," there is a curious passage relative to 
the monks of Mount Athos which bears on this 
point. It is given in Gibbon, in the words of an 
abbot of the monastery, who flourished in the 
eleventh century. 

" When thou art alone in the cell," says the 
ascetic teacher, " shut thy door, and seat thyself 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 339 

in a corner ; raise thy mind above all things vain 
and transitory. Incline thy beard and chin on 
thy breast ; turn thy eyes and thought towards 
the middle of thy body, and search the place of 
the heart, the region of the soul. At first, all 
will be dark and comfortless ; but if you persevere 
day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy ; and 
no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the 
heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal 
light/' * 

The fixing the eye upon an outward point, 
steadfastly continued for a time, has certainly 
a potent influence over the body. A young man, 
who is a friend of mine, and often calls to have 
an hour's talk with me, and now and then to get 
a sharp homily for running after " the rat and 
mouse" demonstrations, told me, not long since, 
that, being at his own desire, (at some seance 
he was attending,) put under the mesmeric in- 
fluence, and desired to fix his eye on a black spot 
in a card he held in his hand, he did so, till 
he felt his senses going, and gave the matter up. 

Being drawn to a centre, and remaining there, 

* Decline and Fall, in one vol. p. 1108. 



340 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

still and motionless, is the first step, you may 
believe me, to the noblest and most exalted 
mode of devotion, which is communion with God. 
The power of centres is a great mystery. But 
what are we surrounded by, on every side, 
inwardly and outwardly, but mysteries ? 

That by patient and sustained introversion, 
we might find many of these mysteries opened up 
to us, I do not for a moment doubt. But the 
habit of being led by the senses, overpowers us 
with the impression of the outward world. 

"The ideas or objects of the intellect," says 
Dr Cudworth, "are nothing else but modifications 
of the mind itself But sense is of that which is 
without. Sense wholly gazes and gads abroad, 
and doth not know and comprehend its object, 
because it is different from it. Sense is a line ; 
the mind is a circle. Sense is like a line which is 
the flux of a point running out from itself; but 
intellect is like a circle that keeps within itself." * 

All this is mysterious ; and the only thing we 
can do, is, not to seek by this and the other wild, 

* " A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality," 
p. yg. By Ralph Cudworth, D.D. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 34 1 

purposeless tricks, to pry into these mysteries, in 
order to see what trading capital for self we can 
get out of them. Our business is, to use them 
humbly and reverently, after the silent, simple, 
devotional manner, which " the man within the 
breast ;" or, in other words, which "the inspiration 
of the Almighty which giveth understanding"* 
suggests. That this suggestion points to the 
exercise of stillness of body, as helpful in promot- 
ing mental calm, I believe that all deeply-tried 
and thoughtful people, if religiously actuated, will 
be disposed to admit. In a work, written from a 
sick-bed, by an invalid, who, for many a year of 
suffering, had been prostrated there, there is a 
passage which describes with so much precision, 
the exact position of body which is helpful in 
silencing the mind, that I will quote it I may 
premise, that in a conversation which I once 
held with this lady, I heard her speak of the 
benefit she had personally found in the practice of 
that cessation from thinking for which this position 
of body is favourable. I should also say, that it 
was simply on the ground of abstaining for a 

* Job xxxii. 8. 



34 2 The Solace of a Solitaire: 

short time from giving way to thought that she 
commended the practice. She was no disciple of 
Barclay's, but a dutiful daughter of the Established 
Church, and a reverent observer of all its 
formulas. On the advantage, nevertheless, of 
internal silence for a certain time, the same 
Teacher that revealed to Barclay its value, 
doubtless instructed her. It is a blessed thing 
for us all, that this divine minister knows nothing 
of diversity of creeds, or the cry of " I am of Paul, 
and I of Apollos ;" but whose ministrations tend 
only in one direction ; which is to teach us how to 
"keep the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of 
peace." But, to return to the passage in question, 
which is addressed to a fellow-sufferer from long 
continued illness ; and which is so valuable in 
every word, that I will give it entire. 

" The burden of weakness which you are bearing, 
makes it seem to you as if all cares and trials 
centred in you, and that all must be borne and 
done in this moment of incapacity. Then, you 
feel that you shall never come out of it, and that 
seems of itself a wearisome weight of woe. To 
rouse yourself seems impossible ; to take interest 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 343 

in anything or person, most difficult. All you care 
for is to be left alone, not spoken to, and to be able 
to feel for a little season that you have no cares 
and responsibilities, nothing that you must attend 
to. Sometimes you must struggle on, there is 
really no escape from it. But even then, if you 
can get but a quarter of an hour, or even ten 
minutes, the best remedy is to lie perfectly still on 
your back, and your head as little raised as you 
can comfortably bear, with your arms by your sides 
and your eyes shut, resolving not to think at 
all. Do not make the slightest effort, not even to 
move a limb, or to speak. Do not even try to pray. 
Refuse all thoughts, pleasant or painful ; or rather 
do not cherish or encourage any that offer them- 
selves. When you first adopt this practice, you 
will feel and say that you cannot help thinking ; 
but go on trying, and you will find that, by de- 
grees, you acquire the habit of not thinking, and 
that it will become most valuable discipline to you, 
and be the greatest assistance in all your attempts 
at acquiring self-control." * The injunction not 
" even to try to pray" given above, I conceive to 

* " Sickness, its Trials and Blessings," p. 73. 



344 The Solace of a So lit awe : 

result from the idea of the writer, that prayer 
necessarily comprised thinking in words, if not 
giving them utterance with the tongue, — so incon- 
ceivable is it, even to a truly devotional mind that 
has been trained in outward observances, that 
there can be any profit of a spiritual kind to be 
derived from silent supplication. 

In speaking earnestly on this point on one occa- 
sion to a well-educated and highly intelligent 
woman, and advising her to try and adopt this 
mode of prayer, she replied, " I see much truth in 
what you say ; but the plain fact is, that if I were 
to try to put myself into the condition of inward 
silence of which you speak, I should go to sleep." 

" Well, you had better be asleep," said I, " than 
indulging idle and unprofitable thoughts. But 
surely you need not set about this act of silent 
worship when sleep is likely to overtake you. A 
quarter of an hour of wakefulness may certainly be 
found in the course of the day for the practice of 
private prayer ; and even this small portion of time, 
daily dedicated to silence, with humble earnestness 
and desire for good, would create a habit of introver- 
sion which you would find of incalculable benefit." 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 345 

With respect to prayer, " do not think," says 
Fenelon, "that it is necessary to pronounce many 
words. To pray is to say, " Thy will be doner 
It is to form a good purpose ; it is to raise your 
heart to God ; it is to lament your weakness ; it is 
to sigh at the recollection of your frequent dis- 
obedience. . . . The best of all prayers is to act 
with a pure intention, and with a continual refer- 
ence to the will of God." * 

Nothing can be more intelligible to the spiritual 
mind than this counsel ; but to the natural man, it 
is totally incomprehensible that God can be served 
after this manner, with the breathings of the heart, 
apart from the language of the lip. He does not, 
for he cannot, see the mysterious connexion of 
spirit with spirit. But the mystery of connexion 
is the great secret of the universe. It meets us 
everywhere and in everything. 

" A unity of idea reigns through the worlds of 
mind and nature. Thus there is a slumbering, un- 
conscious reason in nature, and the highest pur- 
pose of natural philosophy is to compare it with 
the ideal reason within us. . . . We may at length 

* " Spiritual Letters," 



346 The Solace of a Solitaire : 

pass beyond this point of view, and, disregarding 
outward facts altogether, may sink down into our 
own interior consciousness, grasp the divine idea as 
it exists there , and from it, as the starting-point, 
deduce a connected system of truth." * 

The sum of the whole is, that in our present 
condition, we see, as the apostle says, but " through 
a glass darkly ; " and the query which I have 
placed as a motto on the title-page of this work 
meets us at every turn : — " What is man, and 
whereto serveth he ? What is his good, and what 
is his evil ? " 

In the Assembly's Catechism in use in the 
Church of Scotland, an answer is given in reply 
to the question " What is the chief end of man ? " 
which seems to me to supply an adequate solution 
to the above query : — " The chief end of man is to 
glorify God here, and to enjoy Him for ever." f 
The enjoyment of the creature in the Creator must 
be the fulfilment of the end for which he was 
created. And what does it comprise but the satia- 

* Morell, " Elements of Psychology," p. 249. 
t I quote from memory, and may possibly omit or misplace a 
word. 



A Record of Facts and Feelings. 347 

tion of the soul in the contemplation of the per- 
fection of beauty, goodness, and truth ? — a realisa- 
tion of that blessed promise, " My people shall be 
satisfied with My goodness ; "* — and an experience 
divinely expressed by the Psalmist when he says, 
" In Thy presence is fulness of joy, and at Thy 
right hand there are pleasures for evermore." f 

This consummation of bliss is to be known only 
in another stage of being ; but a foretaste of it is 
sometimes granted here, to the sincere soul, in that 
precious state which it is its earnest and constant 
endeavour to experience, of — 

" Desires composed, affections ever even, 
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to heaven." % 

* Jeremiah xxxi. 14. + Psalm xvi. 11. X Pope. 



THE END. 



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